Listen to the Earth, Book Two
by Damki
Summary: Katara's saved the Northern Water Tribe, but there's still a lot left to do: master Waterbending, find an Earthbending teacher, save Ba Sing Se ... Book Two, Avatar!Katara AU; sequel to Imagine the Ocean, my Avatar!Katara AU of Book One. Some Sokka/Suki in later chapters. Rating just to be safe, for eventual violence. COMPLETE.
1. General Fong, Part 1

WELL THAT TOOK LONGER THAN I INTENDED. All apologies to anybody who's been waiting the YEARS it's taken me to finish this, and thank you so much for your patience! (If it helps, I should be able to post this book very regularly and very quickly, as aside from minor edits it's essentially done.)

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>"Prince Zuko," Yin said, and bowed without awkwardness—not, perhaps, as low as she might have if Zuko had been standing in the throne room in Da Su-Lien, but certainly lower than necessary given his status now. The man who had followed her off the boat did the same. "General Iroh," she added, and bowed even lower.<p>

"What do you want?" Zuko snapped, before Iroh could even open his mouth to reply.

Rude; but Yin did not look upset. Then again, Mizan thought, the woman was used to handling Zhao—next to that, Zuko's abruptness probably sounded perfectly reasonable.

"Nothing," Yin said, "if you do not wish it. Zhao is gone—"

"And we were there when he went—something you might do well to remember," Zuko said.

Yin looked at him consideringly for a moment, and then dipped her head. "Very true," she said, glancing at Iroh. "The word of the Dragon of the West would not be disregarded by my superiors—but I do not intend that you should feel the need to barter it. Zhao is gone; his quarrel with you had no cause discernable to anyone but him, I think. It is my duty to keep you from Fire Nation territory, but aside from that, I do not wish you ill. The seas we must cross to reach the south again are wide and dangerous, sailed by pirates and enemy fleets. I cannot think our company would go amiss."

Mizan stared, and then shook her head a little; perhaps something in her ears had been knocked askew by the wave. "Apologies, Lieutenant—"

"Sub-Admiral," the man beside Yin corrected, tone polite.

"Sub-Admiral," Mizan amended. "You are offering to escort us? Are you hoping to have all your sailors executed?"

"To escort you back to Port Tsao," Yin said, "not through the Gates of Azulon. I realize even that may qualify as lawbreaking to the truly zealous—but, you may recall, when we first commandeered this ship, the target of the law in question appeared to be dead."

"You propose that my nephew remain dead until we reach the port again," General Iroh said, and Mizan could tell that he was smiling, just a little.

"Essentially, yes," Yin agreed, and turned to Zuko, bowing slightly. "It is possible that I will have to discover you, and publically express my horror at your presence; I hope it is not too much to ask that you add stowing away in a Navy ship to your official list of crimes."

"I am already punished," Zuko said, grim, and Mizan fought the urge to roll her eyes. "It won't make anything worse."

"Excellent," Yin said.

* * *

><p>The room was long and wide, dim except for the wall of flames that burned day and night before the throne, and the carpet was narrow; it made for a distinctly intimidating walk, if you weren't used to it.<p>

"Ah, my daughter; there you are," Father said, and Azula fancied that somewhere behind the flames, he was smiling.

"As you requested," she said, bowing low, and then sat up straight. She knelt, as all who attended the Fire Lord must, but she was not subservient.

"I have a task for you," Father said, and Azula's heart leapt. It had been very dull the past few months, since that last uprising to the east; she had been beginning to think Father was angry with her. "I have received word from the colonies, rumors—it seems your brother has been causing trouble."

Azula suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. She had thought Zuko could surely sink no lower. "Has he ever done anything else?"

"Your uncle is still with him, too—unfortunate, but it seems Iroh will not veer from the path he has chosen." For a moment, Father's frustration was audible—and it should be, Azula thought, considering how often his family had failed him. She alone had not; and would not, no matter what he asked of her. "Tell me, Azula," he said. "Would you hesitate to kill them?"

She blinked, staring at the dark shape of Father behind the flames, and then laughed. "You already know the answer to that question," she said, grinning.

"I do," Father admitted, and his tone was rich with satisfaction. "You will go to the colonies, and track them down. Take a few battalions with you—as many as you need."

He was feeling flexible—in a mood to listen. "Perhaps battalions are not the answer, Father," Azula said, "if you want it to be done quickly."

"You would fail, with battalions?" Father said.

Azula considered her words carefully. "I would succeed less excellently."

There was a long still moment; and then Father laughed. "Very well. I suppose you have a plan of your own, then?"

"A team—small, fast, and highly skilled," Azula said. "And I know exactly where to find the people for it."

* * *

><p>"Perfect," Yue said, and grinned.<p>

Katara let her shoulders drop, and smiled, sending the water curling back into her bending pouch. "Really? Because I felt like maybe—"

"Duck," Yue interrupted, already dropping down herself, and Katara slid to her knees on the ice a second before an icicle the size of her arm flew over her head and splintered against the far wall.

"... I didn't mean for that to happen," Miktakit said, sheepish, arms still extended.

Katara and Yue had practiced alone for only two more days, after the battle. The third day, when they had climbed up to the room in the morning, Kilurak had been waiting for them, and two girls had been beside him, both looking a little nervous.

Yue had put them at ease in minutes; and now, almost two weeks after the battle, they had been joined by five more girls, and three of their mothers. Katara might have worried about losing her teacher, but she could feel herself improving steadily; maybe being the ocean actually had helped a little. Now she mostly needed repetition, to give herself a chance to feel out how energy would follow the contours of a move—not something Yue really needed to watch her do, although she still corrected Katara's posture sometimes.

So Yue was free to help the others, more often than not. "Impressive speed," she told Miktakit, laughing, and then touched Katara's shoulder. "Maybe run through the sequence a few more times—the better you know it, the more confident you will feel." She clapped her hands together. "Now, Miktakit: show me what you did again, but not so fast this time."

.*.

Katara might have been improving, but it was still tiring work; and she tumbled into sleep almost the moment she lay down on her mat.

It had been that way for days, rambling thoughts sliding into darkness almost immediately, so she was startled for a second when she ended up in a faint grey fog this time.

"Oh, one of these again," Aang said beside her, and they shared a grin while they waited for the fog to clear a little.

It took longer than it had that first time, mist eddying uncertainly like it wasn't sure quite where to go. But at last Katara caught a dark shape, something other than gray—dark red, she thought, as it came nearer. Roku.

"Indeed, Avatar," Roku said, and smiled faintly; but the expression looked pinched and strained.

"Is there something wrong?" Katara said.

"It is—not easy for me to be here," Roku said. "When we first came to you, you had been in the Avatar State only hours before; you were—close to us, as such things are reckoned in the spirit world. The temple was Aang's home, when he came to you, and he travels with you now. But the far north gives me no strength; it is a wonder I have found you at all." He paused a moment, looking grave. "There are things you must know, if you are to bring balance to what is. There will not be time, here; but if you come to me at midwinter, when it would be the solstice here, we may speak freely of what is to come."

"Come to you?" Katara said, and glanced at Aang; he shrugged, looking just as baffled as she felt. "How?"

Roku lifted his hands, catching a little mist between them and cupping it in his fingers for a moment. He closed his eyes, concentrating; and between his palms it formed a shape. A picture—a coastline, rocky and uneven at the shore, and beyond it stood a vast tower, red-walled and imposing. "A Fire Nation Avatar temple," he said. "There are quite a few; this one stands in the south of the colonies, on the shores of the kingdom of Lannang. There are sages there who will help you. I will be there on the solstice, at sunset. Will you also, Avatar?"

Katara tried to memorize the look of the wavering mist-picture, and hoped their colony map would have the place marked. "I will," she said; and then Roku faded back like ink in water, and Katara dreamed of chasing penguin seals until the sun came up.

.*.

She remembered everything when she woke as clearly as if Roku had been standing in front of her, the same way she remembered the first one; and she rolled on her side to find Sokka staring at her from the next mat over, eyes narrowed, and Suki already sitting up, watching her with eyebrows raised.

"What?" she said.

"You're about to tell us something wacky," Sokka predicted.

Katara sighed and sat up, rubbing her face. "How'd you know?"

"You've got that look," he said. "That Avatar-level weirdness look. Like you're trying to figure out how you're going to make whatever you say next sound normal."

"You kind of do," Aang said, hovering over Sokka's head and eyeing her critically. "Something about the eyebrows."

Katara stuck her tongue out at him.

"The dead guy totally agreed with me, didn't he?" Sokka said.

"I couldn't say," Katara told him, prim, and then gave in. "I had another dream—but I think Yue's going to need to hear this one, too."

.*.*.*.

It was a beautiful morning, sunlight glimmering gold over the ice and making the wall shine. The sun was barely a finger's width from the sea; soon, Yue thought, it wouldn't rise at all, not for weeks. She would have sat down to watch it, but sprawling over the palace steps like a child seemed a little undignified. So she was standing at the top of the stairs, looking out over the city, when Katara cleared her throat and touched Yue's arm.

"I'm sorry," Yue said, smiling even before she turned around, "I should be upstairs already, I just—" and then she caught sight of Katara's solemn expression, and went quiet.

"It's not that," Katara said. "There's something I need to tell you."

Katara explained the dream she had had, and Yue could not have timed it better: almost the moment she finished, Mother and Father came down the hall.

"I know I'm not quite a master yet," Katara was saying, "but I'm getting close, and he was so specific—I have to be there by the solstice, there's no way around it. I—I could come back—"

"Why should you?" Yue said. "We are safe, here; there will not be another fleet, not so soon after the last. The Earth Kingdoms bear the brunt of the war—and you would have to go soon anyway, to find someone to teach you Earthbending."

Katara looked uncertain. "I suppose that's true," she said slowly.

"Exactly—it would be foolish. No," Yue said, "it's best this way." She smiled. "I will go with you." Just loud enough: Mother and Father had paused in the corridor to speak to someone, but Yue saw Mother's head turn.

Katara blinked. "You'll go with us?"

"Go where?" Mother said, stopping a few feet behind Katara.

"The Earth Kingdoms," Yue said. "The Avatar has had a dream, Mother; she must go there. I agreed to teach her everything—I didn't say she had to stay in Kanjusuk to learn it."

Mother and Father exchanged a sober look, and Yue braced herself for an argument; but Father only sighed. "I said you were an adult," he said, "and it was the truth. I cannot keep you here when your duty takes you elsewhere."

She wasn't so adult that she wouldn't throw her arms around his neck and whisper, "Thank you," in his ear. And he squeezed her very tight; but when it was done, he let her go.

* * *

><p>It would be another day or two before the Avatar left with Yue—preparations had to be made, and, of course, there would be a farewell feast. Neither the Avatar nor the chief's daughter could expect to leave without one, and certainly not when they were traveling together.<p>

It worried Ukalah; of course it did. The thought of her daughter wandering the south in the middle of the war, alongside the one person the Fire Nation wanted more than any other, made her feel like she needed to sit still and breathe quietly for a very long time.

But she was the chief's wife—she could not sit still for five minutes, let alone a very long time. And it pleased her, too: her daughter was the Avatar's teacher, and had as good as bested Master Pakku.

Ukalah grinned over the bowls she was laying out, thinking of the look on Master Pakku's face when he had heard the news. He had been caught somewhere between a frown and a smile, clearly annoyed that Yue would continue to undertake so prestigious a task where the rest of the world could see her, and yet, Ukalah suspected, glad that she would be gone. Probably, he hoped she would take her ideas with her, and he would no longer have to watch women defile the noble bending arts in their spare time.

Ukalah chuckled.

"The dishware entertains you immensely today," Yugoda said wryly, spreading out another mat. There would be a healing class, soon; the mats were for the girls to kneel on, and the bowls to hold their bending water.

Ukalah laughed, setting down another bowl. "Not the dishware," she said, "just—life."

"Just life, hmm?" Yugoda said, and then turned at a sudden blast of cold air; the tent flap had opened.

It was Kilurak—Miktakit's brother, a pleasant boy. He had volunteered to help with the assassination, during the battle; and he had been in the Spirit Oasis when Katara had saved them all. He was biting his lip, cheeks faintly flushed, but he was standing up straight.

"Does someone need me?" Yugoda said.

"No," he said, "no, I just—"

Yugoda sat back on her heels, and smiled. "You want to stay for the class," she guessed.

"Yes," he admitted, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "Miktakit and I, we've shown each other some things, but she's got Yue. I mean, not that Yue couldn't teach me," he added quickly, "I know she was your student; but she has to teach the Avatar how to fight, not how to heal."

"Pick a seat," Yugoda said. "But not right there—Nimikah always takes the next seat, and she splashes a lot."

"Thank you," Kilurak said, relieved and grinning, and caught the bowl Ukalah tossed to him.

* * *

><p>Katara was still full the morning they left, hours after the evening feast; the tiger seals might be smaller in the north, but they apparently had polar leopards—huge ones.<p>

They'd picked a good day: the sea was calm, and the sun would probably make it above the horizon by noon. Chief Arnook had prepared a boat for them, larger and deeper than the usual flat-bellied skiffs, and an embarrassing crowd gathered to see them off.

Chief Arnook and his wife were at the front, of course, and before they boarded they were each given a gift.

"For you," Arnook said to Suki, and motioned behind him; Hahn came forward, and, startlingly, there was only a little resentment on his face.

"I made them myself," he said, and drew a pair of bone knives from his belt, one with each hand. "I know you've got those fans, but—well. You beat me. You should have them."

Suki was more gracious than Katara might have been. "They look very sharp," she said, and took them when he turned the hilts toward her. "I'll take good care of them."

"Well," Hahn said, awkward. "Good." He and Yue looked at each other for a long moment, but he said nothing.

Sokka was next: Tuteguk came forward to give him a sword, taken from a Fire Nation soldier and modified. "I think it will serve you well," he said, "for you pursue nobler aims than its former master."

Arnook had a pike with him; many Northern men carried theirs on a regular basis, and Katara had thought nothing of it until he turned it and swung it toward Yue. From the haft, near the blade, swung a small medallion, very like the ornaments Yue wore in her hair. "For you, my daughter," he said. "I know you are not trained in its use; but you are a warrior of the Northern Tribe, and you should have a pike of your own."

She took it from him carefully, and she might not have known how to attack anybody with it, but she clearly knew how to hold it. "Thank you, Father," she said quietly, and lifted it up until she could lean it against her shoulder, hand balancing against the weight of the blade.

"And for the Avatar," said Ukalah, and held out a small container—a jar, almost, except that it came to a point at the bottom, and the handle of the stopper was carved into the shape of a crescent moon. "Sacred water, from the Spirit Oasis. It is touched with great power, should you have need."

"Thank you," Katara said, and took it. There was a thin cord for it to hang by, and she climbed into the boat and tied it carefully to one strap of her pack, near the top; she didn't want to risk accidentally setting everything she was carrying on something so precious.

Like someone stepping onto the boat had been some kind of cue, everyone else moved for it at the same time. Katara moved up into the bow, to leave more space, and Yue lingered a moment to give her mother one last hug; so they were at opposite ends when everything was settled. It was like they'd planned it: they looked at each other and lifted their arms at the same time to move the water beneath them, and the boat skimmed away toward the wall and the open sea beyond.

.*.*.*.

Their days on the water started out short and dim—the second day out from Kanjusuk, the sun barely peeked over the horizon. But that changed more and more, the further south they got; and even though it was nearing midwinter, by the time they began to round Gungduan it felt like spring to Suki, just because the days were so much longer.

There was enough space in the boat for Yue to practice with her pike, as long as the rest of them stayed out of the way. She handled it both inexpertly and confidently; she'd seen pikes used so often that she did know what to do with it, but her hands and arms weren't used to actually doing it. By the end of the first week, the deck was pitted with scratches where the blade had struck when Yue lost her grip.

"It was such a thoughtful gift," she told Suki once, rubbing a cramp out of her hand and eyeing the pike dolefully. "And it is such a fine blade—I should never have been allowed to touch it."

"Oh, stop," Suki said, and caught Yue's palm, tipping it until she could dig her own thumb into the stubborn knot of muscle. "It was meant to be used. You heard your father; he wasn't expecting you to take it just so you could tuck it away somewhere where it would never get a scratch on it."

"Yeah," Sokka chimed in. "He said you were a warrior and he gave you a weapon. He was practically asking you to learn to beat things up. I mean, maybe he didn't have the deck of the boat in mind, but—"

"You're helping less than you think you are," Suki said, and swatted him on the arm with her free hand.

Sokka had a little less trouble with the sword, because he'd used clubs and spears and fans before. Not that they were the same thing, of course, but he had a pretty good idea how to hold the sword, and how to lunge and slice and stab. Sometimes he did do the wrong things with his wrists; "I keep expecting it to _open_," he said mournfully.

And, of course, Katara was still practicing her bending with Yue. When Yue was worn out from swinging her pike, she'd sit in the bow, and Katara would stand amidships and run through sequences with a globe of seawater. There were still some mishaps occasionally—the day she first tried something that Yue called "octopus form", they all got completely soaked. But the days she took the Waterbending scroll out, she looked at it like a well-learned favorite book, not something so far beyond her that she was running to catch up.

They came down through the strait between the northern islands of the Air Nomads and the shores of Gungsao Kingdom, and followed the curve of the kingdom's coast south. As near to Fire Nation waters as they were, it seemed best to stick close, and the mountains of Gungsao were a constant low line on the eastern horizon.

They had packed lightly—there had not been much time to prepare, with the hurry they were in. But the skies were clear, and the distance went quickly with two Waterbenders on board; when they were halfway there, Katara decided they could stop to round out their supplies without setting themselves back too far.

At the tip of the peninsula, before the coast curved north again, their maps marked a city called Changmei. Katara's map had a vague blotch without a name, and their Fire Nation map had a sullen brown mark and a vaguely resentful label: "北國的首都", and only below that, in tiny characters, "昌梅" (1). According to the map legend, the brown color meant the city had changed hands several times.

"Well, no wonder," Sokka said, "look at it, it's like two inches away from the Fire Nation."

"You do realize it's not two actual inches," Katara said, very dry; but she was frowning faintly as she looked down at it.

"It's only been two months since we bought this," Suki said. "I'm sure it hasn't been captured again already."

.*.

It hadn't, as it turned out; but not for lack of trying. There was a wall around the city harbor, with a line of Earthbenders stationed along the top, and the rock was scorched black in huge swathes where Fire Nation catapults had struck it.

There were towers built into the wall, evenly spaced along its length—and shafts that extended into the wall below them, which they realized when a rectangular section of one suddenly swung out with a thunk.

There was a man standing inside, on top of a short pillar of rock. He had obviously used it to lower himself down the shaft; the same way Katara had used that tower of ice to lift them all up to the prison ship in Lingsao, but in reverse. "Who are you?" he snapped. "Why do you seek to enter Changmei?"

Katara and Yue both looked a little taken aback, and Sokka was starting to scowl; so Suki took it upon herself to say, "The Avatar, and her traveling companions."

"The Avatar?" the man said, and laughed, sharp and unamused. "Mm, yes, like an epic tale from legend: the Avatar will come with three children, in a little wooden boat."

At that, Yue took a step forward, chin high. "Whether you believe us or not," she said, "we are clearly travelers, not a Fire Nation battleship. If we cannot resupply here, then at least tell us another nearby port."

The man glared at her; but Yue stared back, unbending, and finally he shook his head. "Very well," he said. "If one of you is the Avatar, General Fong would not deal kindly with me for sending you away. I will send the orders back; when you dock, they will take you to the citadel."

He held out a fist, and then pulled it sharply toward himself, and the wall closed over him again. There was a rumble of shifting rock that seemed to go on forever, and then a tiny figure appeared atop the wall; and a moment later, the stone in front of them parted, leaving a tunnel through the wall just wide enough for their boat to pass through.

.*.*.*.

"The Avatar?" General Fong said, leaning forward. "Are you sure?"

They glanced at one another. "... Fairly, yeah," Sokka said. "Um, not to be rude, but if you're a general—"

"—what am I doing on the throne," General Fong filled in, and smiled.

It wasn't an especially reassuring smile; in fact, it kind of gave Sokka the creeps. General Fong as a whole kind of gave Sokka the creeps.

The citadel was nice—imposing, maybe even a little intimidating, but that was the whole point. Shiny stone floors, immense iron-shuttered windows, delicate screens covered in paintings of people dying horribly: what was there not to like? General Fong had greeted them very politely, and hadn't tried to kill them yet, which put him head and shoulders above a lot of the people Sokka and Katara had met on this trip.

But the second somebody had said the word "Avatar", something indefinable about his expression had turned strange and focused. It was the kind of look Sokka would expect hunting tiger seals to wear, if hunting tiger seals had looks.

In conclusion: creepy.

"You must understand," General Fong said, "our position is very delicate. We had no hand in the declaration of this war, but the Fire Nation stands at our doorstep; while Ba Chang sits undisturbed, the walls of Ba Sing Se unbreached, we hear the echoes of war drums in our sleep." He glanced at Katara, and then at Sokka; they were both wearing their Water Tribe clothes, had been ever since they had reached Kanjusuk. "While our neighbors to the east have been fortunate enough to receive some aid—"

Sokka swallowed. _We fought the Fire Nation away from the walls of Shengtian_, Bato had said; but Sokka couldn't remember any mention of Changmei.

"—we have not been so lucky." General Fong spread his hands, as though he really thought it was simply a whim of the universe; but his eyes were lingering on the beads in Katara's hair, the Water Tribe insignia on Yue's medallions. "We stand on the edge of a knife," he said. "This city has been lost to the Fire Nation many times; each time, we have won it back, but it has cost more effort, more lives, more pain. The last time, our king and queen were both lost in battle."

"So you generously took over," Sokka said. He tried to keep his tone neutral, but judging by Suki's glare, he'd let a little skepticism sneak in.

General Fong didn't seem to notice, though; he only smiled again. "No, no—our illustrious rulers were lucky enough to bear a daughter. I merely serve as humble regent for Queen Yuanlin, until she should take the throne herself. The law of Gungsao precluded it until four months ago, when she turned eighteen; she has generously allowed me to temporarily retain the position."

"Despite your strong encouragement to the contrary, I'm sure," Sokka said.

General Fong inclined his head. "Indeed," he said. "But, of course, it is my pleasure to allow the queen as much time as she feels necessary to ready herself for the responsibility." He clapped his hands together. "But enough business. You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish; the palace and grounds are yours to explore. I hope you will find Changmei a pleasant place."

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>(1) If I did not completely mess this up, the first phrase, in Mandarin, would be rendered in pinyin as běiguó de shŏudū, which can be approximately translated as "capital of the northern region". The second likewise reads (well, should read!) in pinyin as the name of the city: Chāngměi.<p> 


	2. General Fong, Part 2

Zuko leaned on the rail, and stared out over the water.

He'd been doing that a lot, recently; there weren't many places to go on a ship this size where you could just stand and think, and he had had his fill of belowdecks on the way up.

"Ah, the spirit of the late prince has risen once again to haunt our decks," Mizan said loudly from beside the bridge.

Zuko gritted his teeth. Mizan was enjoying his extended death a little too much.

"I will attempt to avert its supernatural vengeance," Uncle told her gravely, and Zuko made himself keep looking at the ocean instead of glaring when Uncle came up to the rail beside him. "You have been very quiet, Prince Zuko. Although I suppose that is not exceptional behavior in a dead man."

"I could have been," Zuko said after a moment. "That girl, with the white hair; she could have killed me. The Avatar could have killed me, when she was merged with that spirit."

"But they did not," Uncle Iroh said, gently.

Zuko shook his head. "I don't understand. I don't understand them—I don't understand myself. Zhao was right: victory was before him. It would have been a great triumph for the Fire Nation." _For Father_, he did not say. "But when that woman killed him—when the Avatar saved that other spirit—I felt—" He shook his head again, half-hoping it would knock the rest of the thought from his mind, but the last word spilled out anyway. "Glad." _What does that make me?_

"You did not like Sub-Admiral Zhao, and he gave you reason," Uncle said. "He was a ruthless man, and a cruel one. Is it so incomprehensible that you should prefer his death to the death of the moon, or to the death of the Avatar and her companions, who have never hurt you?"

"They seek to turn the tide of war against the Fire Nation—to destroy what our family has spent a century trying to build. They are hurting us all." It was true, Zuko knew it; it had been a cornerstone of all his lessons as a child, something every tutor, every book, had reiterated. The Earth Kingdoms and Water Tribes harmed everyone through their resistance—the Air Nomads had destroyed themselves the same way. But somehow the words had still wavered on their way out of his mouth. This, he thought, was the weakness in him that Father had seen so clearly. No wonder Father had chosen to get rid of him.

"Of course," Uncle said, very flat; there was a moment of silence, and then Uncle sighed. "What will you do, then, when we reach Port Tsao and you are returned to life?"

Zuko looked down at his hands, tight on the rail. "I don't know."

* * *

><p>Yuanlin swung the pike around and then paused, weapon still extended, and let herself grin. The last two times she'd tried that swing, she'd accidentally thumped herself in the ribs, but this time she had managed to keep the haft close against her arm where it was supposed to be.<p>

She turned to look at the target, resting the pike on her shoulder for a moment. It wasn't her pike; it was a practice weapon, the dull wooden blade coated in red dust, and she'd left a thin sweeping line of scarlet on the target, like the first stroke of a piece of calligraphy. It was pleasant to see. This, at least, she could be sure she was good at.

"Wonderful," someone said gently behind her, and she turned.

It was the Water Tribe girl, the one who was not the Avatar. She had introduced herself as Yue—not to Yuanlin personally, but General Fong had sent a servant to her to relay the news of their guests' arrival. According to General Fong, Yue was the crown princess of the far north, as those people reckoned such things. Looking at her, Yuanlin could believe it: she stood with a quiet, thoughtful sort of confidence. Yuanlin tried to quash her envy.

"I did not mean to interrupt," Yue said, sheepish. "I was only looking around; and then I saw you practicing. I have a pike myself, but." She made a face. "I'm not very good at using it. If it is not too great an imposition, could you do that again, a little more slowly?"

"Of course," Yuanlin said, bowing, and moved the pike back to starting position. She would never have done it any other time, but there was no one here watching her except the girl. "See, you must hold it like this, and keep your thumb here. You will need to control the haft as you swing. If your grip is not good, you may hit the target, but you will also hit yourself."

"You speak from experience?"

Yuanlin grimaced, and let go of the pike with one hand so she could touch her ribs gently. "Very recent experience," she said.

Yue laughed.

"I am not a true expert," Yuanlin admitted. "I have been trained a little; enough to practice, and enough to tell when I am getting better." She let the pike slide back through her hand until the end of the haft rested on the ground. "And when I make mistakes here, I hurt only myself."

She glanced up; she had not meant to be so maudlin, and she intended to apologize, but Yue was smiling at her softly. "You sound like Katara," she said.

Yuanlin blinked, too startled to be polite. "The Avatar?"

Yue nodded. "She worries about everything. I've only known her for a little while, but her brother and her friend have told me. She worries all the time that she'll do the wrong thing."

"It doesn't seem possible." Yuanlin shook her head—not to deny, only to clear it. "She is the Avatar."

"You are the queen," Yue said.

Yuanlin flushed, and lowered her eyes, suddenly awkward. She wished the pike were not in her hand; she could not fold her hands into her sleeves, could not hide behind a proper posture. "General Fong—"

Yue took a quick step forward; when Yuanlin looked up again, her gaze was searching Yuanlin's face, her forehead creased with a tiny frown. "You are the queen," she repeated.

Yuanlin took a breath and cleared her face; she should not have begun such a conversation with a guest. She would never be able to explain properly. Better to consider the matter closed.

But she was too late. "You're very like Katara," Yue said. "Except you have a choice. You can give away your responsibility—but you will be giving it away to General Fong, and surely you must be able to see how his bitterness drives him."

"It drives him to do what is best for the kingdom," Yuanlin tried.

"It drives him to do what he thinks will assuage his anger," Yue said. "You are the queen; but the reason you will be a good queen is not because you were born a crown princess. You'll be a good queen for the same reason Katara will be a good Avatar: because you worry. Because it's so important to you that you not fail to do what is right."

Yuanlin looked at the red-streaked target. "I'm not ready," she confessed; the words were loud in the sudden stillness, and she felt herself flush again. She had never been ready, and ever since her birthday, she had been waiting for someone to point it out—to realize she was not kind enough, not clever enough, not strong enough to rule.

Yue's hand was very gentle on her shoulder. "Katara wasn't either, when she started," Yue said. "She still isn't, sometimes."

Yuanlin looked at her. It seemed so unlikely. Surely the Avatar, of all people, did not doubt her own ability. "General Fong has commanded many armies—it was he who took back this city. Who am I to say I could rule better?"

Yue paused, and then bowed a little. "If I may make a suggestion: I think perhaps you should talk to Katara."

.*.*.*.

General Fong did not precisely hold a feast for them; but there was excellent and abundant food for supper, and they were seated at the high table, right next to Queen Yuanlin. Well, except for Aang—he was hovering in the middle of the table, occasionally dipping his hands through the edges of people's plates.

The general had been telling the truth about the queen: she was only a little older than they were. Her bearing was formal and composed, but there were small hints of trepidation in her face, and she kept her mouth closed even when she smiled.

General Fong was the exact reverse, laughing and talking boisterously. Katara was almost glad she was sitting on the far side of the table from him; he kept slapping the green-robed advisor next to him on the back, and it looked like it must have hurt.

Yuanlin kept darting glances at him, often enough that Katara couldn't help noticing. She was waiting for something, it looked like—and, sure enough, when General Fong leaned forward and away to listen more closely to the man two seats away, Yuanlin set her chopsticks down and spoke. "I hope you are enjoying your stay," she said.

"Oh, yes," Katara said, "it's beautiful."

Yuanlin smiled. "Yes. I think sometimes I can't even tell anymore—it's my home, it has always looked beautiful to me."

Katara snagged another dumpling; they were really excellent. "I'm sure you'll rule it well."

Yuanlin wavered, looking down at her bowl; when she looked back up, the corners of her mouth were still tilted up, but it wasn't a smile anymore, not really. "I—hope so. My mother was a great woman; my parents were both well-loved. I know I will never be able to replace them."

"No, of course not," Katara said quickly. "No one could, I didn't mean—"

Yuanlin stared at her, eyes widening, and then suddenly giggled. "Yue really was serious, wasn't she?" she said.

"Yue?" Katara glanced down the table—Yue was two seats away, past Sokka and Suki. "What did she say about me?"

"That you worried," Yuanlin said. "That you—made mistakes sometimes."

Katara grimaced. "More often than sometimes, I think," she said, poking her dumpling. Her appetite was suddenly less than whetted. "I haven't even been the Avatar for six months, and I've already lied to people and stolen things and—" _Say it_. Aang was gazing at her, sympathetic, from the middle of a serving platter. "—gotten people killed."

Yuanlin was watching her, eyes gentle, any trace of a smile completely gone. "How do you do it?" she asked quietly.

Katara stared down at the dumpling, biting her lip, and then made herself look up again. "I have to," she said. "There's no one else who can."

"Hey, seriously," Sokka interrupted, elbowing her, "you have got to try one of these things," and by the time Katara had taken one of the rolls he'd proffered and turned back around, General Fong was back in his seat, smiling at her; and Yuanlin was silently sipping her tea, eyes down.

.*.

Katara went looking for Yuanlin again the next day; but when she reached the entrance hall, General Fong was there instead. "Ah, Avatar," he said, "just the person I was hoping to see."

"Just the person we were hoping _not_ to see," Aang muttered over Katara's shoulder, and Katara had to bite her lip for a moment to keep from smiling.

"General," she said, instead of looking at him or answering; if there were one person in the world whom she didn't want to know about Aang, it was General Fong. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I hope so," he said. "Tell me, Avatar: how did you find out who you were?"

"I did things I shouldn't have been able to do," Katara said, trying to stay vague. "Being the Avatar is a piece of who I am; and sometimes that piece—"

"—overwhelms," General Fong filled in, eyes alight. "I have seen records of such things—the Avatar State, they call it? Such devastating power, at your very fingertips."

Katara shifted uneasily. "I can't control it," she said, "not yet; I haven't even mastered Waterbending."

"Control?" General Fong laughed. "What is there to control? You have gone into it already, have you not? More than once, by the sound of it."

Katara swallowed; for a moment, there was a rougher cut of stone beneath her feet, and blood seeped into a woman's hair.

"Katara," Aang said hurriedly. "Katara, he can't make you do anything."

It was hard to keep herself from looking at him, but she managed to force her eyes to stay on General Fong, who was gazing back at her intently. "I understand, Avatar," he said. "You bear a grave responsibility; every day you leave the Fire Lord alive is a day when lives are lost that you might have saved. If you were only older, more skilled, more able, so many things would be different. Perhaps your people would not have had to leave to save our neighbor to the east." _Perhaps they would not have passed us by_—he didn't say it, but the words might as well have been inked on his face. "Perhaps the queen's parents would still be alive."

"No one can blame you for that," Aang cried, swinging around until he was in front of General Fong, Fong's beard just visible through the blue glow of his head. "You told me so; and I told you, and now I'm telling you again. You can't keep doing this to yourself."

It wouldn't look strange to General Fong now, so Katara let herself look at Aang. She couldn't say anything with Fong right there, couldn't explain: she knew he was right, but General Fong had mixed blame with truth. If he really could find a way for her to reach the Avatar State whenever she chose, she could end a century of war in days, instead of months or years. That _was_ her responsibility; she couldn't walk away from a chance like that. "What do you propose?" she said.

.*.

"Are you _insane_?" Sokka said. "Please tell me that the dead guy hates this plan as much as I do."

"Oh, I do," Aang snapped.

Katara sighed. "He does," she relayed grudgingly when Aang glared at her. "Look, this is the whole reason we left home. I need to master the elements so that I can use the full power of the Avatar—but what if there's a shortcut?"

"You're talking like Master Pakku," Suki said. "The Avatar's not some separate outside thing you need to get in touch with; you _are_ the Avatar. You already have all the power you need—mastering the elements is how you learn to use it."

Katara forced herself to take a deep breath instead of snapping. "Look, all he's going to do is have some of the palace guards attack me. If nothing happens, then nothing happens. Don't you think it's at least worth a try?"

"Oh, so he's just going to have some trained soldiers hurl giant rocks at your head?" Sokka said. "Never mind, that's totally reasonable."

Katara rolled her eyes. "It'll be in the courtyard," she said, "there's a giant fountain. I'll be fine. He gave me his word; nothing but the soldiers, and only as many attacks at once as I say."

"Well, if you won't change your mind, then I guess we're going, too," Suki said.

Yue nodded. "We're not going to let you do something this stupid alone."

* * *

><p>"I still think this is incredibly stupid," Sokka muttered.<p>

"Would you like to tell her again?" Suki said. "Maybe the fifth time, it'll work."

Sokka glowered at her; but he didn't really mean it. He wasn't angry—or, he was, but not at Suki. For once, they hadn't actually been in any danger, so of _course_ the best use Katara could find for her time was to have herself systematically attacked by Earthbenders. Why not.

Another of the palace guards punched a giant stone disk at Katara—a stone coin, General Fong had called it, which made it sound prettier than calling it a "giant stone disk with a big square hole in it". Each of the guards had a stack of the things, and they were taking turns hefting them at Katara, who was deflecting them away with gouts of water from the courtyard fountain.

It was incredibly stupid—and a waste of time, too. They'd been doing it for almost ten minutes, and Katara hadn't even floated once, let alone started glowing.

Underneath the sound of water striking rock, there was a shuffly sort of patter; footsteps, Sokka realized, and turned. It was the queen, and she was staring out over the courtyard with a horrified look on her face.

"No need for concern!" General Fong said loudly, before Yuanlin could say anything. "We have the Avatar's permission—we are endeavoring to provoke a greater expression of her power, in the hope that it may be controlled." He watched another two stone coins fly at Katara, another two loops of water flinging them away, and frowned, very slightly; and Sokka felt the faintest little twinge of unease. "We have met no success yet," the general continued, looking back up at Yuanlin; "but then we have not tried everything. Perhaps it is time for a change in strategy."

He said it strangely, with a grating emphasis on the last three words like they meant something special—like a signal, Sokka thought, a second before a guard's armored fist came down on his shoulder. "Hey—"

"Now," General Fong shouted, and another guard came up to Sokka's elbow and shoved him into the courtyard stones.

Literally: he sank under their hands, rock creeping up his legs. The moment he realized it, he sucked in as deep a breath as he could, and when they had forced him into the stone up to his ribs, he could still breathe.

His fans and his sword were both at his waist, locked in rock; so he grabbed at the first guard's shin with his hands, trying to pull the guy off balance. He could hear Suki yelling behind him, and the thump of somebody in armor hitting the ground. Yue had been at the top of the stairs; another Earthbender had grabbed her. She had her pike, and she slammed the haft into his chest so hard that he tumbled backward down the steps; but she was sunk into the rock up to her waist, there was only so much she could do.

Sokka slammed his fist repeatedly into the side of the guy's kneecap, and the third time, something popped, sending the guy stumbling away with a curse. But the guard at his elbow was still there, and he dug a hand into Sokka's hair and pushed him another foot down.

And then he let go, because he needed both hands to shield his face from the grit in the air. The wind, Sokka realized, and twisted his head around as far as it would go.

Sure enough, Katara had lost it. Her eyes were blazing blue, water from the courtyard fountain curling around her, and when she lifted her hands, the stone coins that had struck the ground near her all rose into the air at once.

"Not good," Sokka muttered. It was possible he wouldn't mind if one of those things landed on Fong; but Queen Yuanlin was standing only a little way away, and Yue was trapped in the rock right next to her. If Katara killed one of them by mistake, she was never ever going to forgive herself. "Hey, Aang," he shouted into the wind. "Now would be a great time to become corporeal, buddy!"

.*.*.*.

Zuko leaned against the port-side wall of the bridge. Another full day, which meant they were perhaps a week out from Port Tsao, and he still hadn't decided what to do. He should have known better, he thought grumpily. Talking to Uncle never made anything clearer.

Certainly, it was true that the Avatar had not hurt him personally—granted, her repeated escape from his grasp meant that he could not go home, but that was not her intention.

And if he had captured her earlier, the moon might now be dead. The moon—and the ocean, too. Had Zhao ever said he planned to kill only one? Zuko had never been to the spirit world, not like Uncle, and it was Father's aim to bring balance to all things, to make the world one under his rule. But that dim red moon, that girl screaming behind the bamboo ... Zuko forced himself not to shudder. Perhaps Uncle had been right: that was not the way it should be done.

His place in his father's hall was worth the Avatar; Father had made it so. But would it have been worth the moon? If Zuko had captured her before she was able to heal it, had been restored to his position—was it possible that it would have done more harm than good?

Zuko gritted his teeth and shoved himself away from the wall. These were pointless thoughts, it had not happened that way—

"Sir!" Mizan shouted, and Zuko turned. Even before she could say anything else, he followed the line of her arm: they were passing the southern reaches of the kingdom of Gungsao, close enough to the shore to see the walls of the capital—and the fierce blue-white light that shone behind them.

The Avatar had come south again—within his reach, when he had thought all was lost.

Mizan had jogged closer along the deck, and stopped an armslength away. "I'd strongly advise against chasing her now, sir," she said. "We could use quite a few repairs, and I doubt you'll convince Sub-Admiral Yin that this is a good time to launch an assault on an Earth Kingdom."

"Of course," Zuko said, "of course," and let himself smile. Uncle _had_ been right: unlike Zhao, they would have another chance.

.*.*.*.

The round-cut stones did as she wished; she lifted three and sent them spinning one by one at the soldiers to the side, easy as skipping rocks across a pond.

Another soldier threw a chunk of the broken wall at her, desperate; she caught it and whipped it back at him, and he threw himself to the ground a moment before it struck the courtyard just behind him, shards of stone flying everywhere. She pulled the air beside her into a tight sheet of breeze, and the shrapnel was swept away and did not touch her.

Half a dozen men were trying to flee behind her; she turned in the air and sent flame whirling toward them, and the grass beyond the courtyard gate went up in a blaze of yellow.

Nearly all of them were yelling—the soldiers, the children trapped in the stone, everyone—but she could hear it only faintly over the howling wind. Insignificant, she decided.

The hand on her shoulder, though, was significant. A faint touch, perhaps, but discernably there.

She was not looking with her eyes, so she did not turn; but she pushed the wind away, drew the air near her to a standstill, and her braid thumped down over her shoulders. A hand on her shoulder, her braid on her shoulder—she had shoulders. Somehow she had forgotten that.

"Come back," someone said—she heard it, even though the still air did not move. "Please, Katara, please, you have to come back. Everything will be fine, I promise; you just have to come back."

Katara. That meant something, but she had forgotten that, too. She was herself and not herself, larger somehow than the body the shoulders belonged to; she would have to give that up in order to remember. But, she suspected, she could always get it back.

She closed her eyes, and became small again.

.*.

"It worked! Katara? Katara! Are you okay?"

Katara opened her eyes. She was standing, which was great, but she knew that because she was looking down at her feet, which she hadn't really been meaning to do. Her head wobbled on the way up, but it made it; and she was greeted by Aang's enormous nervous eyes.

"Was that you?" she said shakily. "How did you do that?"

Aang spread his translucent hands. "I think maybe you're a little bit spirit when you do that?" he said. "I don't really know. But it worked! I mean, it worked, right?"

"It worked," Katara said.

Somebody was shouting, but the words weren't really coming through. Katara shook her head, in case it would help, and managed to make herself massively dizzy; but before she could fall over entirely, there was a shoulder propping her up and an arm around her back.

"Very impressive," Suki said. "Let's never do that again, okay?"

"Okay," Katara said.

.*.*.*.

"Get her _out of there_," Yuanlin snapped at the nearest cowering guard, and she took the pike from Yue's hands and swung it around until she could lay the blade—not lightly—on General Fong's shoulder.

She had been in the practice arena again, but her strikes had all been halfhearted; she had been thinking over what Katara had told her all night. She could not say, as Katara could, that she was the only one who could do what was needed—but she wanted to try, more than she ever had before. Perhaps she would fail, but she could not know if she never took the throne. She had been intending to find General Fong and tell him these things; and then she had come to the courtyard and seen the Avatar and her friends attacked.

And now she had been possessed, she thought distantly. Taken by a spirit; struck on the head by a loose piece of stone. Whatever the cause, words were spilling from her mouth that she had never thought she would have the courage to say.

"The Avatar is _not_ a weapon. That you should think to use her as such tells me you have more in common with the Fire Lord than I had ever suspected."

General Fong had turned angrily at the touch on his shoulder; but he faltered now, with an expression on his face like he had just been punched. "Your Highness—"

"Your Majesty, I think," Yuanlin said, and it came out so cold and commanding she could hardly believe she was listening to herself. "It is time I claimed the throne that is mine." Her mother had said something to her once, when she had been a child: _to speak your mind is a dangerous thing_, she had said, and laughed. And it was—Yuanlin felt as though she might never stop. Her heart was thundering in her chest; she had never spoken to anyone so boldly in her life. How did anyone ever go back to diplomatic politeness after this?

"Your Majesty, do not be foolish. We have been abandoned; her people are one among many who have left us to fight a hundred-year war alone. It is as much as she owes us—"

"She owes us nothing," Yuanlin said. "Unless you propose that we blame her for the way the land and sea are arranged, the cause of our troubles has nothing to do with her." Beside her, the soldier had obediently pulled Yue free, and she was standing at Yuanlin's shoulder. "Sometimes others help to save us," she said, half to Yue; "and sometimes we must save ourselves."

General Fong's expression had closed further and further as she spoke, and now he laughed, ugly and sharp. "Oh? And what will you do, Your very young Majesty, when the Fire Nation comes to take this city again? What makes you think you are capable?"

It was the question Yuanlin had spent the last four months fearing, certain that someone would ask and that she would have no answer. Now, she looked down at him and smiled, just a little. "Nothing," she said. "Perhaps I am not; perhaps I will be the first to die. But I am not moved by bitterness, or by revenge—only the desire to do what is best for Gungsao. You cannot say the same. Should you be forced to choose between an opportunity to fight and an opportunity to flee safely and return another day, how could you be trusted to decide with a clear mind?"

"Ah, yes," General Fong said sourly, "better that such choices be left to frightened girls."

"I know that I am frightened," Yuanlin said, "and so I will know not to let the fear choose for me. You have been angry so long that you cannot tell the difference between the anger and yourself."

The Avatar had come to the base of the stairs, with the Earth Kingdom girl supporting her on one side and her brother on the other; she was listing more heavily with every step, her eyes closed. "I hate to interrupt," the other girl said, "but could somebody help us find somewhere for her to rest?"

"Of course," Yuanlin said, handing the pike back to Yue with a bow. "Please, follow me," and she turned and led them back into the palace, leaving General Fong standing alone on the stairs.

* * *

><p>They would not take a larger boat—they needed something four people could handle. But there were plenty of other things they needed, clothing repairs and replacements of worn shoes and fresh supplies; and Yuanlin happily provided.<p>

"Seriously, this boat is sitting like a foot lower in the water now," Sokka said as he climbed off the dock, and Yuanlin smiled.

"I hope you will accept my apologies for General Fong," she said, dipping her head in a bow.

The Avatar, already standing in the stern, bit her lip. "You aren't going to—kill him or anything, are you?" she said. "I did agree. I mean, not to the part where he shoved my friends into rocks; but he wasn't actually trying to hurt us."

"Yeah, he's a sad and misunderstood guy," Sokka said, rolling his eyes.

"He will not be killed," Yuanlin assured the Avatar. "He did not act honorably, and he will not keep his rank; but he will not be killed. I know you have not seen much evidence of it—or, perhaps, too much—but he is a fine tactician. I think he could do much good if he could only remember his purpose."

"I hope you're right," the Avatar said.

Yue was last to board the boat, and she stopped before she left the dock to touch Yuanlin's shoulder. "I think you will be an excellent queen," she said; and the smile did not drop from Yuanlin's face until long after their boat had vanished on the horizon.


	3. The Avatar Temple, Part 1

Doing my best to be quick about this, to reward anybody who's hung on this long for their patience! If you aren't anon reviewer NP, feel free to skip ahead—not intending to make you feel self-conscious, NP, but I don't have any other way to reply to you. :)

Thank you so much for all your lovely compliments, and there's absolutely no need to apologize for the rest of your feedback, as I love hearing what people think even when I'm not able to incorporate their commentary! I'm so glad you've enjoyed both books so far, and especially that Katara, Yue, and Zuko have come across so well for you. You are absolutely right that no secondary bending skills have really showed up yet; they definitely will, but I wasn't able to make it happen in quite the same way, so it'll take a little longer in this universe than it did in the show. (Fortunately, I also have more time, because there's going to be four books of this instead of three.) And my apologies for the Earth Kingdoms stuff, I did my best but I know it's still confusing: Ba Sing Se is still the city, Ba Chang is the name of the kingdom Ba Sing Se is capital of. Because Ba Sing Se is so enormous, Kuei is king of an economic and demographic powerhouse; so he's not _technically_ in a position of authority over any of the other kingdoms but he _is_ very important (or his position is/his kingdom is, at least). "Ba Chang" and "Ba Sing Se" are used almost interchangeably by some characters because Ba Sing Se is so huge/holds 95% of the kingdom's population and is therefore basically the same thing as the kingdom anyway, but you're right to think they aren't perfectly synonymous! Since Kuei can't be termed the Earth King anymore, I needed a name for the kingdom he was king of, and I wanted something related to the city name. (In my background notes, a couple thousand years ago, "Ba Chang" and the "Ba Sing" part of "Ba Sing Se" were the same two words, Ba Cang/Tsang; they've diverged since into different pronunciations. And that was probably more than you wanted to know!) Seriously, thank you so much for your far-too-kind review! I'm so so grateful. (And as regards your PS: the current working title for Book Three is Carry the Flame—in keeping with the "quotes from the show" pattern, a paraphrase of some dialogue from The Firebending Masters. :D)

ANYWAY. On to the chapter!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2: The Avatar Temple<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>It had been a long time since Azula had been near the grounds of the Royal Fire Nation Academy for Girls. She had not set foot there since the day she had passed the last of the exams—with record scores, of course. She would not have allowed herself to settle for less.<p>

She did not have to set foot there today, either, for Mistress Im's home was not located on the grounds; but from where she was, she could see the school walls, the clusters of buildings, the upturned roof of the tower where they had been taught the basics of astronomy. She did not miss it—to miss something was to give it control, and Azula did not give control away. But she smiled at it for a moment as her ostrich horse picked its way up the path. For years, the Academy had been Azula's whole world, and she had ruled it happily, unchallenged. It was pleasant to remember.

She had come without any escort, without the lines of soldiers that usually followed her whenever she was in public; they would only have been an encumbrance here.

Mistress Im's home was also exactly as Azula remembered it, down to the boulder on the left side of the house that had always made it so easy to climb from the top of the wall to the ground. Mistress Im herself was older, the lines of her face softened, but there was no gray in her hair, and her smile was unchanged.

"Your Highness," Mistress Im said, bowing appropriately low, and a servant came to lead Azula's ostrich horse away. "You have come to see my son, I suppose—surely you do not need help breaking into the school kitchens yet again?"

Azula smiled, as sweetly as she could. Mistress Im still saw the little girl Azula had once been, the eager student who had not yet killed. Inaccurate, now; but to maintain the illusion would serve Azula's purpose nicely. "Not today," she said, "though I do have a favor in mind."

"Well, there can be no talk of business before we have had tea," Mistress Im said. "Please, Princess, come in."

It was a redundant thing to say, in a sense. It wasn't as though she could have refused Azula entrance. But it certainly made things simpler. Azula kept the smile on her face. "You have ginseng, I hope," she said, and stepped inside.

.*.

Samnang must have been somewhere at the back of the house; he came down the hall toward them just as Mistress Im was leading her through a doorway, and he went still when he saw Azula.

He was taller now, but he watched her the same way he used to: unblinking and careful, like she might stab him as easily as smile at him, and he wanted to be ready for either. To be fair, it was not an inaccurate premise; he had always had good sense. That was half the reason he had made such an excellent accomplice. "Princess Azula," he said, even and unreadable. "We weren't expecting you."

"What, a princess can't just stop by and visit an old friend?"

Samnang said nothing; his mother patted him on the shoulder. "I'll be back in a moment with the tea, Princess," she said to Azula with a polite dip of the head, and backed away.

"Why are you here?" he said, tone just deferent enough that the question did not sound rude.

Azula smiled. "You've been helpful many times in the past," she said. "We would never have been able to get into Master Chao's private stores if it hadn't been for you. And the gate—Mai and Ty Lee would never have known where to look for the spare paint." It was true. They had managed a fair amount of havoc on their own, but they'd done so much better when they'd had a teacher's son who knew the grounds like the back of his hand. "You remember."

The smile that crept onto his mouth said that he did, and after a moment, he nodded. "And?"

"And I'm hoping you'll prove helpful again," she said.

.*.

Mistress Im came back with the tea, and when they were finished, she kindly insisted Azula be given a tour of the house. "We have made some additions," she explained, "for the girls, and the twins—the girls are in class now, but the twins are too young."

"It would be my pleasure," Samnang said, and led her down the hall.

The twins were indeed too young for school—perhaps two years old, they were curled up asleep, nose-to-nose, on a thick mat in their new room. "How darling," Azula murmured, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Samnang's gaze dart to her.

"You hope I'll be helpful, you said." Samnang took a step closer. "How?"

"Come with me to the colonies," Azula said, kneeling down by the foot of the mat. They really were adorable children, round-cheeked and sleek-haired. "Apparently my dear brother's exile has not led to the self-improvement we all hoped for, and my uncle is not above following his example. My father has given me free rein to ... track them down. It would be an honor if you would join me." _For you_, she did not need to say.

"And a pleasure," Samnang said, but his tone did not suggest cheerful acceptance. "But I should not leave my mother—"

"No, of course," Azula said kindly. "I understand. It was a selfish request; no doubt your mother needs you here. After all, it would be a terrible shame if anything were to happen to your family." She turned to smile at him over her shoulder, and from beneath her fingers, smoke began to curl up from the corner of the mat. All of Azula's Firebending instructors had complimented her on her control.

Samnang swallowed, eyes following the smoke as it curled up lazily over the twins' heads. "A terrible shame," he repeated. "But my mother is so close to the school; no doubt she will have all the help she needs. I'll tell her so when I ask her permission—I'm sure she will agree."

"I hope so," Azula said, and lifted her hand away from the blackened, still-smoking mat. She knew she had been right to come here. Samnang truly hadn't lost his good sense.

.*.

By the time she had returned to the coast with Samnang in tow, the ship was ready and waiting, as she had ordered: a Navy vessel, but on the small side, built more for speed than strength. The crew was loyal, carefully chosen by Father himself, and when she stepped on board and watched them bow she couldn't help smiling.

"Where are we headed?" Samnang said.

Azula considered. "Port Tsao, I think," she said. "A neutral port, and in the right area—if my dear brother has been there, it will not take long to find out."

"As you say, Princess," the captain said, bowing again; and a moment later, they were easing away from the dock, headed for the Gates of Azulon.

* * *

><p>"No offense to Waterbenders in the area," Sokka said, "but, seriously, I'm getting kind of tired of water. I can almost tell I've met this water before, and that is just not okay."<p>

They had curved east on their way south from Changmei, plotting a careful course that kept them as far from land as possible, and they had been rewarded. Even with the Fire Nation on one side of them and the colonies on the other, they hadn't seen a single ship, except maybe a couple deep-water fishing boats in the distance. To be fair, with two Waterbenders instead of just one, they were speeding along with remarkable ease.

But they were angling in toward the shore now, and Suki had to admit that it looked distinctly familiar. They weren't quite back at Lingsao—that was a fair way further to the south. But they had definitely passed this stretch of coastline before. Suki wouldn't have been surprised if they had run into their old canoe on the way.

"Sorry," Katara said dryly.

Sokka made a weighing motion with his hands. "Actually, it's making me kind of nostalgic. Remember back when it was just Zuko trying to kill us, instead of all those archers and admirals and fleets? Ah, the good old days." He leaned his elbows on the gunwale and sighed.

Behind his back, Katara and Yue looked at each other and grinned; and the easy motion of the boat slowed at the exact moment a sudden wave leapt up to smack Sokka in the face.

"Hey!"

Suki couldn't help giggling, and Sokka turned to glower at her, drips flying.

"You're all terrible people," he said, wiping haphazardly at his face.

"You'd have laughed at you, too," Suki said, before she took pity on him and turned to look for a spare cloth for him to dry off with.

"Does that look like it might be a temple tower to anyone else?" Yue said.

Suki yanked the first cloth she laid hands on out of her pack and tossed it to Sokka before she looked. The shoreline had been unremarkable so far; mostly trees, and the occasional rock large enough to see clearly from where they were. But there was definitely something else now, tall and faintly reddish through the haze. Katara sucked in a sharp breath, and her side of the boat wobbled for a second.

"That's it," she said, "that's exactly how it looked when Roku showed it to me. That's the place."

.*.*.*.

Today was the winter solstice, though they were close enough to the middle of the map that it was rather undramatic. At home, it was midsummer right now; but midwinter meant weeks of night, and the solstice the darkest of it. Here, the days were simply a little shorter.

They had made excellent time, and Katara had been pretty sure they were going to make it, but it was still a relief to see the temple in the distance. If this ever happened again, she was going to ask Roku for more specific directions.

By the time they reached the shore, only the very top of the temple was visible over the trees; but Suki spotted the trailhead of a path, marked with a post that was carved with the Fire Nation's three-tongued flame.

"Awesome," Sokka said. "Why are we walking right up to a Fire Nation temple, again?"

"Because Roku needs us to," Katara said.

Sokka eyed her. "We're not going to pick up a new dead guy, are we? I kind of like the one we've got."

Aang laughed, drifting over until he could mime patting Sokka's head with one intangible hand. "Don't worry," he said, "you're stuck with me."

Katara grinned. "No," she said to Sokka. "We're just going to visit one."

.*.

The temple was on a small hill, the carefully-tended path leading them up the slope to the steps. It was beautiful, all curling eaves and red-toned tilework, and Katara was so busy staring at it all that it took Sokka's elbow in her ribs for her to realize there was someone else in the entrance hall.

The man was red-robed, shoulder-cloak held closed with a red stone, red bands around his wrists, red hat on his head.

"It's like they think maybe we don't get that this is a Fire Nation temple," Sokka murmured.

"This is a sacred place—how dare you," the man said loudly.

Katara swallowed. Roku had said they would help, she remembered it exactly; but maybe they should have changed into those red clothes they'd bought in Jindao, just in case.

Still, surely when she told him who she was, he would do his duty. "Sorry? I don't mean to cause any trouble. I'm the Avatar, and I had—well, sort of a vision—" She really should have planned this out first.

Then again, it might not have mattered. The moment she said the word "Avatar", the man's face twisted sharply into a scowl, and a second later he punched out with his fists and sent a billow of flame at her head.

She had her bending pouch with her, but it wasn't open—she hadn't been expecting a fight. So she threw herself to the floor with a yelp, fire roaring past overhead.

"Wait," Yue said behind her, "you don't understand," but before she could finish, the man hurled a long whip of fire at her face, and she had to dodge or be burned.

"I think he understands just fine," Sokka said, hauling Katara up by the elbow. "Time to run!"

But there were already two more behind them—they must have been somewhere outside, and drawn in by the noise.

She had lost track of Aang in the initial moment of surprise, but when she turned to look for another way out, he was there, to the side of the hall, gesturing to her from the end of a corridor. "This way, quick!"

"Come on," Katara said, grabbing Suki's arm before she could hit anybody, and ran as fast as she could.

They skidded around the corner, fire crackling past their ears and arms, and the entrance hall echoed with shouts behind them; but their sudden dash had taken the Firebenders by surprise, and they had a pretty good head start. They managed to round another corner, and then Aang darted through a door—"Don't worry, it's empty," he yelled over his shoulder as his head began to vanish, so Katara shoved the door open and yanked Suki and Sokka inside, Yue on their heels.

Aang had been right: the room beyond was empty. Yue pulled the door closed behind them, careful to keep it from slamming, and the only other door led into another hallway that was blissfully quiet and still.

"I knew this was a bad idea," Sokka said, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. "Didn't I say this was a bad idea? I totally did."

"But I don't understand," Katara said helplessly. "Roku said they would help us, I don't—"

"Well, maybe they would have—a hundred and some years ago," Sokka said. "Seriously, am I the only one who remembers how long these people have been dead?"

Katara frowned at him, but she couldn't say he was wrong. Roku had sounded sure, but who knew how long it had been since he had been to the temple? Koh had made it sound like it was easy to lose track of time in the spirit world. Maybe Roku really had forgotten that anyone at the temple he had known would now be dead.

"Sensitively put," Suki said. "There's nothing we can do about it now. Did Roku say where you needed to be at sunset?"

"No," Katara admitted, "but it's a temple. There must be a sacred room—somewhere for the relics to be kept, or something."

"Probably one of the upper floors," Yue suggested. "A place touched by the Avatar would not be placed in a hall dozens walk through every day."

Sokka put his hands on his hips. "Okay, dead guy," he said to the air. "Find us some stairs."

* * *

><p>Sen Ya breathed in, and the candle flame before her sharpened, thin as a blade; she breathed out, and it flared, suddenly fat and tall.<p>

Meditation had never come easily to her; but she had aspired to serve as a fire sage for as long as she could remember, and she had forced herself to master it. She had found that the candles helped: she had learned to focus on them, to watch them without thinking, observe without judgment, and thereby clear her mind.

Not all of the sages meditated, of course; it was no longer required as it had been in the old days. But Sen Ya was an avid student of history—she had not come to the sages with her eyes shut.

Still, she was lucky to have been assigned here, lucky that Shyu and Li Fan had been sent to the same place. She might well have wavered in her search for truth if she had been alone. Nothing flourished in perfect isolation. Without anyone who thought as she did, anyone to talk to, she would have walled herself away in her own mind, and done no good at all.

True, their progress was slow; High Sage Yi did not like any of them, and Sen Ya suspected that he had begun actively warning the aspirants not to talk to them, judging by the way Aspirant Waizu had turned from her yesterday. But they could not be the only ones who saw that something was not right. Sooner or later, there would be light in the temples again.

But enough. These rambling thoughts were not easing her way.

She closed her eyes and made her mind quiet; perhaps two seconds later, there was a knocking at the door, soft but hurried.

Clearly today was not going to be one of her more spiritual days.

She rose to her knees and blew the candle out, sighing, before she rose to open the door—but the moment she saw that it was Shyu, all irritation fled.

"What is it?"

He had been looking down the hallway behind him, almost nervously, and when she spoke, he jumped. But when he turned to look at her, his eyes were alight, and there was a hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth.

"The Avatar," he said. "She has come to us."

"Explain," Sen Ya said instantly. She could not believe Shyu would lie to her, but surely it was not possible—the rumors that been sweeping the western coasts this year had been many, it was true, but he would not come knocking over a rumor.

"A girl in blue," Shyu said. "Water Tribe—the next in the cycle, don't you see, if the Air Nomad before her lived and died in hiding? She came into the hall saying she was the Avatar, led here by a vision." He hesitated.

"Is that all you know?" Sen Ya said, and then a thought struck her. "Tell me they didn't."

"She was attacked," Shyu admitted. "Li Fan saw everything."

Sen Ya's heart was pounding. "Then this is our chance—this is our moment, to serve the purpose our brothers and sisters have forgotten." She looked at Shyu. "Quickly, where is Li Fan? We must find the Avatar before it is too late."

.*.

They would have found her eventually, the temple was only so large; but when they did, it was more a matter of luck than skill. They rounded a corner and nearly ran over her. Them, rather—three girls and a boy, and for a moment, Sen Ya was not sure which to look at. A Water Tribe girl, Shyu had said, so neither the boy nor the girl in green with the strong arms; but there were two Water Tribe girls, one with a long dark braid and the other with hair as white as foam.

"Oh," one of the girls said, surprised; and then her face settled into fierce lines, and she raised her arms, water gushing from the pouch at her waist and pooling in the air in front of her.

"No, wait," Sen Ya began, and the girl paused—the brief stillness made the sound of boots coming up the hall blatantly audible.

"Quick, there's more coming, we need to get past them," the Earth Kingdom girl said hurriedly.

"No," Shyu said, "you need to come with us."

"Not if we can help it," the boy said.

"That isn't what I meant," Shyu said; but Li Fan was already ducking behind him, opening the passage in the wall with a small burst of flame from one fingertip. Good thinking—they did not have time to stand in the hall explaining.

"They will not find us, but you have to come now," Sen Ya said.

They looked at each other. "There's only three of them," the boy said after a moment. "I think we can take them if we have to."

"Better three in front of us than ten behind us," the white-haired girl added, and they rushed as a group through the door in the wall, eyeing Li Fan warily as they passed. Sen Ya hurried after them, Shyu in front of her, and pressed another flame into the space on the inner wall; and the door swung closed behind her just as the first boot-toe rounded the corner down the hall.

.*.*.*.

Once the wall had closed again, it was pitch-black behind it, and Katara froze warily; if those three had brought them in here to attack them, this was the perfect time for it. But there was a shuffle of movement, and then three flames burst to life at once, each cupped in the palm of a hand.

"Perhaps we should move further from the hallway," the woman suggested in a whisper, and led them back about the width of a room and then off to the left. The secret passage evidently wound around the temple tower—it was only a few feet wide, and as long as the width was the same everywhere, it would be hard to tell it was there just by looking at the temple.

"Okay, that's far enough," Sokka said, once they had reached another turn that had to be the corner of the temple. "Who are you guys, and why aren't you trying to kill us?"

"Forgive us," one of the men said. "I am Shyu; that is Li Fan, and that is Sen Ya. We are also sages, like those who attacked you, but—"

"Some sages are more sage than others," Li Fan murmured, smiling.

Sen Ya sighed. "Despite his penchant for poor wordplay," she said, "Li Fan is essentially correct. Many have now forgotten that it is the duty of the temple sages to serve the Avatar, and the balance; but we remember. The sages are taught that Avatar Roku was the last Avatar to serve faithfully. They say that he was followed by an Air Nomad whose resistance to the balance would have destroyed us all, if the Airbenders had not been mercifully eliminated by Fire Lord Sozin."

Katara winced; Aang was staring at Sen Ya, blue mouth agape, like someone had just kicked him in the face. "That's not true," she said, more loudly than she had meant to.

"No, indeed it is not," Li Fan said. "Not all the records from that time are gone; and it is clear that holding the rank of high sage does not stop a person from telling lies."

"So it's the three of you against the world, huh?" Sokka said.

"There are more like us," Sen Ya said, "but not many. Sages who have pledged themselves wholeheartedly to the service cannot be turned away; but if they cannot convince themselves to accept the doctrines, they are reassigned to isolated temples where they will not cause trouble."

"I was transferred here myself," Shyu said. "Last year, I was serving in the Crescent Island temple; but they did not much care for me there."

"But the three of you are all still here?" Yue said.

In the flickering light coming from Sen Ya's palm, it was hard to read Sen Ya's face; but Katara thought her expression landed somewhere between sheepish and proud. "We have become known to the high sages' circle as dissenters," she said. "Temples hoping to increase their numbers mysteriously fill to bursting when High Sage Yi attempts to send us elsewhere."

"But enough," Li Fan said. "If I remember what I heard in the entrance hall correctly, you are not here to learn the recent history of the Fire Sages, Avatar."

"No, I'm not," Katara admitted. "I'm here to talk to Roku."

* * *

><p>Sen Ya listened to the Avatar tell of her dream with steadily-increasing wonder. She had read of such things, deep in the musty temple archives; but she had never expected to have an Avatar stand before her and describe what it was to be visited by a spirit.<p>

"Well," Li Fan said, when she was done, "he must have meant for you to go to his sanctuary room. That is one of the most sacred places in the temple; if there is anywhere he will come to you, it is there."

"What's in there?" the boy said.

Sen Ya exchanged a glance with Li Fan. "We do not know," she said. "Most of the sages rarely have reason to enter the sanctuary rooms; and somehow I doubt High Sage Yi would ever have granted any of us permission even if we had been moved to ask."

"Then how am I going to get in?" the Avatar said, a little nervously.

"I suspect it will take a generous helping of good luck," Li Fan said.

.*.

And their luck was good, at the start: no one was in the antechamber that led to the sanctuary rooms. Most of the sages were probably still scouring the lower hallways for the Avatar.

It was true that Sen Ya had never been inside before. But she had been shown the door by High Sage Yi when she had first come here—the door, and the Firebending lock that guarded it.

Theirs was a relatively new temple, and the sanctuary dedicated to Avatar Roku had pride of place. The temples divided up their duties: Avatar Roku had lived among the eastern islands, and so he was honored by their temple, and the Crescent Island temple, as they were the nearest. Avatar Kunnarya had been from the eastern islands, and Avatar Zhangdien had lived there over half his life; the auxiliary sanctuaries, one to either side, were theirs.

Avatar Roku's stood in the middle, with the great door that stood three times Sen Ya's height—the lock that held it closed took five sages to open.

Or it was meant to, at least; perhaps, Sen Ya thought, there were ways to work around it.

"You cannot yet Firebend?" she asked the Avatar, just in case.

The Avatar looked abashed. "No," she said, "I'm only just mastering Waterbending, I haven't had time—"

"You should not break with the cycle," Sen Ya said, trying to be reassuring. She had not realized it before, with the hurry they had been in, and then the darkness of the secret passage—the Avatar's expression had been so serious, her stance so confident, but she was nevertheless distinctly young. About the age Ba Jin would be now, if Sen Ya were back at home.

She touched the Avatar's shoulder gently, and some of the anxiety left the girl's face.

"Perhaps we will be enough," Shyu said. "We will not have the power to hold it open long, but if two of us stand like so—"

The stance he took was not a traditional one, with the arms so far apart—and, more importantly, it would not equal the power of a two-handed blast, which the lock was supposed to require. But perhaps he was right: perhaps it would shift the door enough for the Avatar to slip through, even if they could not make it open completely.

"You must be ready," Li Fan advised. "If it opens for us, it will not be very wide, and it will not do so for long."

The Avatar bit her lip, looking back at the boy and the other two girls. "But—can't they come with me?"

"I doubt there will be time," Sen Ya said.

"Come on," the boy added, "this is a wacky Avatar thing. We're probably not supposed to go in there."

"But don't worry," the girl with the short hair said. "We'll hold the room until you get back."

The Avatar sucked in a breath, and then nodded, and strode up to the sanctuary door. "Okay," she said. "I'm ready."

Sen Ya was already in a fairly good position. Li Fan and Shyu lined up beside her, Shyu on the other end. They looked at each other, and nodded once; and then Sen Ya spread her arms apart, palms to the door, and let the fire burst from her hands.


	4. The Avatar Temple, Part 2

The door slammed with a bang like ice cracking; Katara was almost surprised that it didn't take one of her feet with it.

The massive lock had unwound itself uncertainly, just far enough for Katara to cram her fingers into the door and pry it open. It had jammed before she could get it far, metal clanging as the lock rebelled—but it had been far enough for her to squeeze through unhurt.

Aang drifted through after her as as though there were nothing there, peering around the room curiously; Katara liked being alive, but clearly some things would be a lot easier if she were dead.

The sanctuary room was big, high-ceilinged, and there was a dais in the middle, shallow steps rising from the floor to support a statue of Roku that was at least half again as tall as Katara. It was almost like the one in the Southern Air Temple, except that it stood alone; and Roku's face was different, expression more imperious than wise.

"So," Katara said. "Is it going to come alive or something?"

"I don't think so," Aang said, floating closer. "This is his place—like the Southern Air Temple for me, or Kyoshi Island for Kyoshi. But he's still a spirit, and it takes some work to cross worlds. Even getting close enough to find somebody's dream is kind of iffy."

"It doesn't seem that hard for you," Katara ventured.

Aang looked at her, briefly grave. "I guess I'm not finished here yet," he said slowly. He gave the room another glance. "But Roku was, and he has been for a long time." He squinted up at the wall, drifting a little higher: there was a small window there, just a touch higher than the statue's head.

"For the sun," Katara blurted, almost the moment the thought formed in her mind. "For the—you see how it'll come through, when the sun's in the right place?"

"Yeah, of course," Aang said, eyes wide; his blue fingers were outstretched, nearly touching the surface of the window. "He was a Firebender, before he was everything else. The sun must give his spirit power."

Katara turned and eyed the statue. "This is another one of those meditation things, isn't it," she said, sighing.

Aang grinned at her. "Probably wouldn't hurt," he said, and then, big-eyed and sincere: "Just remember to transcend."

Katara stuck her tongue out at him, and then sat on the chilly stone at the statue's feet and lined up her knuckles. "Somehow I never imagined that being the Avatar would take so much sitting still," she said ruefully, and then closed her eyes.

* * *

><p>Zuko set his feet on the dock and sighed.<p>

It had been a difficult trip, since they had passed the western tip of Gungduan—the sailing had been perfectly smooth, but it had been hard to sail away from the Avatar, even knowing that they would have another chance now that she had come down from the north. But now that they had reached Port Tsao again, they had had a chance to make repairs: one last stubborn boiler had still held damage from their very first encounter with the Avatar, and the explosion and the giant wave hadn't done them any favors.

Sub-Admiral Yin hadn't had to do anything drastic, as it turned out; their ship had quietly separated from her fleet the moment they had come into the harbor, and so far no one seemed any the wiser. "I am pleased," she had admitted, just before they had departed, "but you should know: if I am asked, I will tell them I thought you dead, and you may yet be labeled a stowaway."

"I think perhaps I can bear the shame," he'd said, a little wryly, because he could. It was a moderately serious charge, for a traitor to stow away in a ship of the Imperial Navy, but it was nothing compared to the dishonor that was already marked so clearly on his face.

To the Earth Kingdoms, he was Fire Nation; to the Fire Nation, he was an exile. It should have been impossible to find someone to repair the ship, but it hadn't been—evidently a neutral port was home to many people who were loose in their allegiance. There was only a little left to do, and Mizan was overseeing it. But when the ship was fully repaired, they would need, as Uncle had termed it, a place to point it. So it was time now to search the docks for rumors of the Avatar.

"Come, Prince Zuko," Uncle said. "Most people are eager to share what they know; I think this will not take long."

.*.*.*.

Azula had not expected it to be so easy. She had not even been paying attention to where she had been walking; she had been busy considering her options. To New Ozai, first, for Mai? Or better to track down Ty Lee's circus? It could take a long time, but they traveled the northern colonies; they should be closer.

And then she had turned, to tell Samnang to watch for a stable where they could buy ostrich horses, and there he had been. Zuko, with Uncle beside him, striding along the wharfside like they had not turned their backs on everything Father stood for; like their necks should not be bent to breaking beneath the weight of their shame. It was ridiculous.

The sudden rush of anger made blue sparks fly between her fingers when she clenched her fists; but she forced it down, and felt a smile begin to break over her face. Good luck was not to be ignored.

"My brother," she called across the docks, and watched Zuko turn and stare, satisfaction warm in her chest as she strode forward. "And Uncle! What luck." She was close enough now to see Zuko swallow unsteadily, and it was hard to keep her smile from turning gleeful.

"Azula," Zuko said warily. "What are you doing here?"

Azula laughed. "Oh, Zuzu," she said, "I see you have learned no social graces during your years away. Not even a word of greeting for your own sister?"

"Years away," Uncle repeated, in that odd measured way Azula hated. Somehow he always managed to sound as though he thought Azula were missing something. It was infuriating. "That is a kind description."

"Azula is in a generous mood," Samnang said, very even.

Azula waved a hand dismissively. "It isn't only me," she said. "Father has been thinking of you—both of you—very often these past few months. Things in the capital are—" She made herself hesitate briefly, eyes flicking down and away as though she felt uncertain. Mai would never have fallen for it; but Mai was not here, and Zuko had never been very perceptive. "Difficult. The war is progressing well, but the closer we come to victory, the greater the number of people who decide they would like to be the one in charge when it finally arrives. Rumors and plots abound, the palace is full of conspiracy—and Father has been moved to remember the strength of ties of blood."

Zuko scoffed, but Azula could see it in the corners of his eyes, the tilt of his mouth—the credulence that had always been one of his greatest weaknesses. He had always been inclined to believe what he was told, to believe everyone meant well; apparently four years in exile had not changed that. You'd think he would have learned.

"Even when he can trust no one at court, he can trust family." She made her mouth curve again, more gently, as though to suggest she felt the same way. "He regrets it, Zuko," she said, very soft. "He wants you to come home."

Zuko stared at her. All the antagonism had drained from his face; there was nothing but surprise there now, surprise and a painful edge of hope.

"Excellent news, isn't it?" Azula said, putting her hand on his shoulder. She would have to wash it later, she thought, and nearly smiled at the wrong time. "The best—aren't you pleased?" She shook him, just a little. "I came a very long way to tell you myself."

"I," Zuko said, faltering, and then swallowed and looked at Uncle. "I can't—he wants me to come back?"

"Come to my ship," Azula said. "We will talk—I'll tell you everything he said. Samnang, go ahead of us, quickly, and tell them to prepare. I did not think we would find you so soon," she explained to Zuko, and, still gripping his shoulder, led him along the docks.

* * *

><p>It happened just the way it had last time: everything slid away, so gradually Katara barely noticed it, and she had no idea how much time had passed when she came free of herself.<p>

She didn't drift to that familiar gray space the way she had been expecting to; when she saw Roku, it was against the backdrop of a space of pale stone, like the bare top of a mountain, and the mist around them was touched with sunlight.

"Avatar," he said, and smiled very faintly. "I am glad to see you. It would have been very difficult if you had not come."

Aang wasn't there—but then maybe he'd decided to stay behind and keep an eye out. Katara bowed deeply to Roku; hopefully it would make what she was about to say sound a little less rude. "Avatar Roku," she said, and then straightened up. "I'm sorry to have to tell you, but the sages, they turned against me—"

"I know," Roku said, and he sounded aggrieved. "I told you there were sages here who would help you, and there are: three of them, to be precise. In the other temple where I have power, there is now only one. This temple, I thought, would be the safer." He waved a hand. "But enough—you are here, and our time is limited. Now is not the moment to discuss whether the Fire Sages have strayed from their purpose. Tell me, Avatar: what do you know about the beginning of the Hundred-Year War?"

Katara tried to remember what Gran-Gran had told them, in the evenings around the fire. "Fire Lord Sozin began it," she said. "He wiped the Air Nomads from the earth; and he besieged Ba Sing Se and raided the south, all at the same time. Ba Sing Se held firm against him—but no Air Nomads are left, and he weakened the Southern Water Tribe greatly with that first attack."

"That is all true," Roku said, "but there was a reason he chose a single day to do it all."

"Sozin's Comet," Katara filled in, and Roku nodded, looking like something heavy had come down on his shoulders.

"Yes," he said, and then, "I—I knew him, then, before I died. His aims were misplaced, but he was no fool. I was already dead when the war began, but all the spirit world felt it: the day the war began, the comet was closest, brightest, burning even in daylight."

"I don't understand," Katara said. "I mean, I understand about the comet, I know that part of the story—but why did you tell me to come here now? It's been a hundred years since all that. If you wanted to make sure I knew the history of the war—"

"No," Roku said, "although you should not underestimate the value of such knowledge. I asked you to come here precisely because it has been a hundred years: the comet is returning."

"Returning?" Katara said, swallowing; her belly was suddenly cramped with nausea. _Don't throw up in front of the Avatar_. "No—it can't be—"

"It can," Roku said, sympathetic but inexorable. "It is. Sozin's Comet will come to the sky again in the height of northern summer, less than a year from now. Fire Lord Ozai already knows it will return soon, though his understanding of when is not precise; as soon as it begins to shine again in the sky, he will begin his preparations, and he will use its power to burn the Earth Kingdoms to ash. If you cannot stop him, he will win the war by the end of the summer, and there will never be balance in this world again."

Katara stared at him. "But I haven't even finished mastering Waterbending."

"If you do not have command of the elements by the end of the summer," Roku said, "all is lost." He looked back at her gravely, and then suddenly frowned, turning his head. "Something is wrong," he said, "in the temple. You know what I needed to tell you, Avatar; and I can help you and your friends to leave this place safely, if you wish it. The rest is yours to do."

* * *

><p>Zuko climbed the gangplank slowly; his eyes were on the ramp ahead of him, but he felt like he could barely see it. Surely it should have sunk in by now, but somehow the more times he thought it, the more ridiculous it seemed. Father wanted him back. Father wanted him back?<p>

It made no sense. Father hardly ever changed his mind, and he did not show goodwill readily—how often had he told Zuko there was no advantage to be had by being quick to dispense favor? If Zuko had succeeded in returning with the Avatar, then perhaps—_perhaps_. But now? When he had done nothing of note in the last few months, except die?

He paused halfway up, dock behind him and deck before; Azula, ahead of him, took a few more steps before she realized he was no longer moving and turned around. "What? What is it?"

"Admiral Zhao tried to kill me," he said, "and thought he'd succeeded—why did you come to tell me, if you thought I was dead?"

Azula laughed. "Because I didn't," she said. "Even when typhoon season is over, it is a perilous trip back to Da Su-Lien for a messenger hawk; and ships from the colonies do not come so often as that. I'm sure no one was eager to report your death to Father. Come, Zuko—there will be plenty of time for you to tell me what you've been up to when we are safely aboard." She turned, dismissive, and took another step up the gangplank.

Zuko bit his lip, and looked over his shoulder at Uncle, who was watching him with calm eyes. Uncle had had to come to a stop behind him, but there was no impatience in his face.

"Come on, Zuko," Azula said, irritation starting to bleed through the pleasant tone she had been using ever since she'd found them. She sounded more like herself right now than she had at any other moment—more real, more sincere, and something about the difference was making Zuko want to back up.

"I—I don't—" He couldn't figure out how he'd been planning to finish that sentence.

Azula had turned around again, and she was eyeing him, arms crossed. She sighed. "I had been hoping to avoid this," she said, conversational. "It will be so messy this way."

She motioned with one hand, and the guards who had been standing silent at the base of the gangplank moved to block the end, weapons at the ready.

"I've been practicing," she said, "just for you," and her smile was girlish and pleased. She swung her arms in an arc, and the air around her began to crackle, blue sparks snapping and flashing.

Zuko backed up a step, but it was foolish—the soldiers were behind him, there was nowhere to go. Azula had trapped him. He cursed himself; he should have seen it coming, should have known she would never say anything kind to him and mean it.

Lightning was gathering at her fingertips, and she lined up her arms for the end of the move and sent a bolt of it hurtling toward his face.

He ducked; he couldn't help it, it was reflexive—and it left the space where his head had been clear for Uncle's hand. Uncle caught it—_caught it_, Zuko had no idea where he might have learned such a thing, and the lightning tangled in his fingers for a moment before he flexed his other hand and sent the lightning darting through him and up, away into a clear sky.

Azula's face twisted in anger and annoyance. "You would dare," she said, taking a step toward them; and then she tumbled down onto the gangplank as the ship shook beneath them.

.*.*.*.

It would be, perhaps, something of a bad habit to get into—this was what Mizan was thinking at the exact moment Isani threw herself over the rail and said, "Zuko's in trouble."

She had sent Isani to follow Zuko and General Iroh, because they could not seem to do even the simplest things without complications arising; but it would be a bad habit to get into, having them followed by their own soldiers every time they left the ship. She had been right in the middle of telling herself so, very firmly, and then Isani's boots had hit the deck with a thump. It was a sign from the spirits, clearly. Zuko should be followed everywhere.

"What kind of trouble?" Mizan said.

"Azula trouble," Isani said.

Azula trouble—that was the worst kind. Mizan had never met the princess personally, and she knew there were many things to admire about the girl; she was an accomplished Firebender, clever by any measure you chose to employ, and she failed at nothing she set out to do. But the look on Zuko's face every time her name was mentioned had not disposed Mizan to think of her with particular kindness. And General Iroh had told her occasionally of the kinds of things Azula trouble had once entailed.

"Where are they?" Mizan said.

"Not far." Isani moved toward the bridge. "If you'll take the wheel, I'll tell you where to go."

Mizan nodded, and snagged a sailor on the way past. "Ready the catapults," she said, and followed Isani into the bridge.

.*.

Isani had told the truth; Azula's ship was not far away. And, luckily, it was even smaller than theirs—a light transport, built for speed more than anything, and not heavily armed.

"Fire at will," Mizan called across the deck, and two fireballs arced gracefully over the open water between and came down with a crash on the other ship.

* * *

><p>Yue slammed the end of her pike into another sage's gut, and the fire that had been building between his hands flew out of his grip—not quite in the direction he had been aiming, so it was easy enough for Yue to duck.<p>

The pike still made Yue feel clumsy, but the reach it gave her was unexpectedly useful against benders, and, even better, she did not have to do anything complex. She only had to hit them with it until their concentration faltered.

Granted, Suki's fans were also excellent, as she could sweep the fire away from herself with a quick swing; but it took somewhat more skill than Yue had to give. And Yue intended to keep her water in reserve—that way, if they should take her pike from her, she would still have a weapon left.

The fallen sage left a brief opening, and Yue took the opportunity to look around the room. They were outnumbered, definitely, and they were being overpowered—but slowly. Katara might yet have enough time to finish what she had come for.

She shouldn't have let herself think it; almost the moment the thought finished crossing her mind, Li Fan cried out and stumbled back, robes alight. Sen Ya, next to him, extinguished them—but the moment of distraction cost them, and two sages managed to get Li Fan by the wrists. Four more spilled in through the door. Yue managed to trip one, but two more rushed her, and the fire from their hands came so close she could feel her cheek tingle.

She swung out with the pike, but she could not have said whether the blow landed; a sudden fierce light filled her vision, and the floor shook beneath her, so violently that she could not tell the difference between it and any reverberation that might be coming up her arm.

She managed to keep her feet, but her balance was uncertain, and it took her a moment to realize that the light had a source: it was coming from her right, from the sanctuary room.

"The Avatar!" one of the sages cried angrily, and when the doors parted, the lock uncurling even though no one had touched it, one of them threw a fireball in with both hands.

It was caught, suspended in the air; and when the light cleared away, there was a man standing behind it, red-robed, and his eyes were glowing.

"Avatar Roku," Sen Ya said, reverent, and her voice was the loudest thing in that moment of stillness.

And then Avatar Roku flung the fireball back out of the sanctuary. It struck the wall over Yue's head, cracking apart and fizzling away into the air. He brought his arm down sharply, and the floor split beneath him, stone splintering like it could not bear the strength of his power. There was a series of echoing booms below them, like he had broken open not only this floor, but every other in the temple; and then an even lower rumble, like the very earth underneath the temple was coming apart. Yue leapt to the side a moment before the crack split the floor where she had been standing, and the wall behind her creaked and strained and then split open, too.

Everyone cried out, tumbling to the sides as the room's halves tilted. The sanctuary rooms were in the middle of the temple, the fourth floor; Yue clung to the broken edge of the wall and stared out at the ground nearly fifty feet down. Sure enough, the wide front stairs of the temple had splintered, and there was a deep crevasse in the earth below, running jaggedly out toward the shore.

.*.*.*.

The mountains in the east of Lannang had been volcanoes not so long ago, all the temple records said so; but Sen Ya had never believed it more than when Avatar Roku lifted his hand in front of her and drew lava up from the earth. The very air felt like it was boiling, and every breath Sen Ya took seemed to sear her throat; her hair was curling against her cheeks from the sheer heat.

The boy had been near her, and had slid back against the side wall, sword still clutched tightly in his hand. She skidded back herself, now, and caught his arm. "Quickly," she said, "you must be ready—it will not last."

The whole room was glowing red with the light of molten stone, but already the lava closest to Avatar Roku was beginning to cool. He was shaping it, Sen Ya could see, with the motions of his hands—filling the gap in the floor, and forming a path down and through the wall. The Avatar thrust out with both arms, and a great wind rose, clearing the heat from the room. He yanked them back toward himself, and a wide curl of water came through the wall—from the well, Sen Ya thought dazedly, or perhaps the sea. The room filled with steam, the worst of it channeled out by the wind; and when it had faded, Avatar Roku was gone, and the Water Tribe girl was standing unsteadily in the doorway to the sanctuary.

"Now," Sen Ya said, and tugged the boy forward. When she knelt to touch the brand-new stone in the middle of the floor, it was cool against her hands; and she could see that Avatar Roku had built a path out that went down to the edge of the beach.

The white-haired girl was already standing on it where it curved through the wall, pike at her side, and the short-haired girl had caught the Avatar before she could fall. "Katara," the boy said urgently, and hurried to loop her free arm over his shoulder.

"Go," Sen Ya said. "We will stop them if they try to follow." It was unlikely; most of the sages were still reeling, some burned by the steam as it had rushed past, others still wide-eyed from the sudden appearance of the Avatar they had all been taught to revere.

"Thanks," the boy said anyway, heartfelt, and together the four of them hurried out through the wall.

* * *

><p>"Are you all right, Princess?"<p>

"No, I'm not all right," Azula snapped, and slapped away the helping hand the soldier had presumed to offer her. Idiots, all of them—_all right_, as if Zuko and Uncle hadn't just escaped her grasp with ridiculous ease.

She had not been expecting an attack from the bay side; she had not been expecting an attack at all, and she grimaced briefly to think what Father would say. Shortsighted, foolish—those would be the kindest of the words he would use, and rightly so. True, she had had little time to prepare, and Samnang had done half the work, going on ahead to give orders for a trap to be prepared; but these were excuses. Excuses meant nothing. She must do better.

She pushed herself to her feet. She had nearly tumbled from the gangplank entirely when the second round of fireballs had fallen, but she had caught the rail before she could fall; her hand was still stinging. "The ship that attacked us—"

"Zuko's, Princess," the soldier said. Azula had thought it likely, but it was good to have confirmation, so she decided not to hit him for interrupting her.

She thought back over the information she had been given before she had left the palace—Zuko's crew and manifest, as they had been at the moment his ship had departed four years ago. It had been his captain, most likely; the woman named Mizan.

The ship was gone by the time she reached the deck, lost among the many boats and battleships maneuvering through the harbor. But it did not matter—Mizan would know the cost of defying Azula sooner or later. No doubt the harbor officials were already on their way to investigate the use of weaponry in a neutral port.

Samnang was beside her, waiting. He had been on deck, and hit by some piece of shrapnel, judging by the blood seeping over one ear and down his neck; but he was ignoring it, waiting for her to tell him what to do. True friendship was so precious.

"I will see to the damage," she said. "When the officials come, tell them we were attacked—tell them that the nearest Fire Nation outpost and all the colonies must be alerted. Zuko, and my uncle, and this woman Mizan: they are not only exiles, they are traitors. Anyone who shelters them will die with them, when they are found."

"Yes, Princess," Samnang said, and bowed.

.*.*.*.

Zuko stared down at the stream, and his fingers tightened around the hilt of his knife.

He was reflected in the water, but it was moving so quickly that his face was broken into a dozen unintelligible shards; half an eye here, the shine of his mostly-bare scalp there.

It would serve a dual purpose to cut his hair. The long high tail made him recognizable; it was an uncommon style in the colonies, and even rarer in the Earth Kingdoms. And removing it would mark the true depths of his dishonor—even more extensive, no doubt, now that he had been forced to flee from Azula.

But he still hesitated.

"Quickly, my nephew," Uncle said gently, and Zuko turned; Uncle had his own blade in one hand, and was reaching for his topknot with the other. "There is no time now—we must keep moving."

"Of course, Uncle," Zuko said. It was true—the walls of Port Tsao were not far distant, and they had much further to go before they could rest safely. Uncle Iroh sawed through his hair, strands parting easily under his knife, and looked at the hair clutched in his hand for only a moment before he dropped it into the water.

Zuko slid the tie from his own hair, and sliced it away with one swing; he didn't let himself look at it at all.

Uncle touched his shoulder. "It is not truly gone," he said. "It will grow back."

"I know," Zuko said harshly. Hair was a simpler thing than honor.

* * *

><p>"Well," Admiral Shalah said. "This is a fine mess."<p>

Yin could not disagree. Zhao had gone from a reasonably well-respected captain in charge of a city blockade to a vagrant officer chasing rumors, to a sub-admiral who had led a fleet in one of the least successful sieges ever executed against a Water Tribe city.

Admiral Shalah leaned back and sighed. "If there is anything to be salvaged from the wreckage of Zhao's career, however, it is you."

"... Excuse me, sir?"

Admiral Shalah fixed her with a considering stare. "You have done an excellent job with what remained of Zhao's fleet—not a ship lost since you took command, judging by your subordinates' reports. And I suspect you have saved us from some lesser disasters that might have been if not for your influence, though such things are naturally difficult to quantify."

"Naturally," Yin echoed.

"I held back the news of the Avatar's return before you left," Admiral Shalah said, "because it would not do to set off a panic, and because I had mostly Zhao's word—perhaps she showed herself in Jindao, or perhaps she was simply his excuse, used to cover up a bloody mistake. Now, I think, is the time. You have inescapable evidence that the Avatar is indeed alive, and presents a clear threat to the operations of the Fire Nation—and a fleet's worth of witnesses to the breadth of her power. And I think it will go over better, coming from a competent young officer who was hampered by her commander's madness but has acquitted herself well in his absence."

_His absence_. Delicately put. Yin wondered what Shalah would say if she knew Yin had caused that absence herself by putting a sword through Zhao's back.

"So," Admiral Shalah said. "The title you temporarily assumed is now yours in truth, Sub-Admiral Yin. You will sail your fleet to Funing Chang, where you will receive repairs and reinforcements, and pass the news of the Avatar's existence to the garrison there, where it can be sent on without delay to Da Su-Lien. And perhaps visit your family, if I have been informed correctly?"

Funing Chang—that was the central country's name for the old city, Phnan Chnang. Yin closed her eyes against the sudden sharp clench in her chest. She hadn't been there in years.

When she opened her eyes again, Admiral Shalah was still watching her, and one corner of her mouth was curling up into half a smile. "I myself am from the north, Sub-Admiral," she said. "I understand."

"It would be my pleasure to carry out your orders, sir," Yin said, and for the first time in what felt like a very long time, she meant it.


	5. Song, Part 1

Most of what happens in this chapter should be pretty familiar to you! Sorry about that; hopefully I've still changed enough things to keep it interesting. The basis for Oma and Shu is obviously canonical, though Suki (having heard the story many times before, since she is from a nearby region) adds some noncanonical details in this universe. Some of the emotional beats in the portions about Song are essentially the same, but I don't believe I ended up repeating any dialogue verbatim, and I made several of the conversations longer/more detailed, so with any luck it's not too terribly dull to read. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: Song<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>Azula had never cared particularly for the circus. To be sure, such feats required considerable skill, and skill was to be valued—which was precisely why it was wasted on mindless crowds in the colonies seeking only a few hours' entertainment. The royal circus in the capital was another matter; at least those performers could be sure they were being properly appreciated. Ty Lee could have no similar certainty.<p>

But then Ty Lee had always been a little odd. She rarely found fault with anything if she could possibly help it—irritating, sometimes, but it meant she always did what Azula said, which made her an excellent friend.

Or almost always, at least: right now, she was looking at Azula with the expression that meant she was trying to come up with an excuse Azula would accept.

She'd been practicing a handstand outside the main tent when they'd arrived; she'd seen Samnang first, and had yelled out a greeting without even wavering. Azula could do a perfect handstand, but it had to be admitted that she did not have Ty Lee's comfortable ease with the position. Not that it mattered, of course. Comfort was well enough, but ultimately irrelevant.

"I just—I mean, I would love to, of course I would," Ty Lee said at last, apology written in every line of her face. "It's so good to see you both! But I really shouldn't go right now. We're right in the middle of a tour, and everything's going so well. It just wouldn't be fair to everyone for me to up and—"

"I wouldn't have come if it weren't important," Azula said, gently.

"Oh, I know," Ty Lee said, "I know—it's your family, of course it's important." She bit her lip uncertainly.

Her family—what foolishness. They were not her family anymore, not after that unpleasantness at Port Tsao; but Azula did not have a chance to correct her. "The more ... assistance we have," Samnang said before she could speak, "the sooner it will be over." He was staring at Ty Lee intently, like he could make her agree if he looked at her long enough.

Azula took a few steps forward, until she was close enough to grip Ty Lee's shoulder; it was easy for her thumb to find the small weak dip under Ty Lee's collarbone. "You're so sweet; I'm sure they all love you. How could they refuse to forgive you such a small thing?" _Their forgiveness_, said the tightening vise of her fingers, _is not what you should be worrying about._

Ty Lee was a strong girl; she had been a tumbler for years, had strained muscles and tendons, had broken the occasional bone. She didn't flinch under Azula's hand—only stared into Azula's face with those huge brown eyes, and after a long moment she let a tremulous smile curve her mouth. "You're right," she said. "I'm sure they'll understand. There's nothing more important than helping your friends."

Not quite the way Azula would have chosen to describe it; but, she supposed, as long as Ty Lee had agreed, the reasoning she used to justify it to herself was unimportant. Azula let her hand soften. "I knew you'd understand," she said, and then barely kept herself from grimacing. That had come out more sincere than she'd intended.

Ty Lee beamed. "Are we in a terrible hurry?" she said. "Or can we stay for tonight's show?"

There were a few failings in herself that Azula had yet to correct; the urge to be generous in victory was one of them. She had Ty Lee's agreement, and a few hours one way or another did not matter—Zuko and Uncle would never evade her, whether they had a few days' lead or a month's. "I suppose," she said. "Will there be lion dancing?"

* * *

><p>Song ticked her way down the list in her mind. Radishes, cucumbers, cabbage; abalone from the coast, and she had already picked her way through the market's selection of mushrooms. They already had a fair amount of fish at home, not to mention the leftover turkey duck, and Song did not have enough money left for much rice—but millet would be cheaper, and Haneul had been generous with her since the day she had set his broken wrist. He usually came into town later in the week, but it couldn't hurt to check.<p>

She was halfway to the spot where his stall usually stood when she saw them: a young man with a hat who was grumbling fiercely under his breath, and an older man beside him. They might not have caught her eye, except the older man was scratching furiously at one arm, and half his face was unnaturally red.

Song grimaced sympathetically: it looked awfully uncomfortable. A white jade rash, if she was any judge. She wondered how he could have gotten it—surely if he had known the plants of the wood well enough to feel safe foraging, he would have also known better than to eat it. But she was not being fair. Perhaps he had been desperate; Leungnok was not the only village in the west populated mostly by refugees. Who could tell where they had come from, or what they might have lost?

Song slowed her steps. The millet could wait another day or two. "Excuse me, sir," she said, and bowed, arms full of cabbage. "Are you perhaps looking for the village hospital?"

.*.

She sponged off the older man's shoulder, and stepped back. "There, that should help."

The man twisted his head, and sniffed the air. "I am sure it will," he said; "what is it?"

Song laughed. "Nothing much," she said. "Mostly chamomile in water, left to cool a bit so that it will not aggravate the fire in the rash."

She turned to soak the cloth and squeeze it out, and behind her, the younger man let out a bark of laughter.

"I don't believe it, Uncle," he said. "Tea is what got you _into_ this."

"And tea has gotten me out again," his uncle said placidly, settling his shirt gently back onto his shoulders. "It is a generous master."

Song turned back around in time to see the young man roll his eyes. He was not, she thought, terribly respectful of his uncle. But then they had evidently been traveling the woods long enough to be searching for their own food, and whose tongue could not be turned sharp by discomfort and an empty belly? "You are travelers, aren't you? Do you have a place to stay?"

The young man shifted uncomfortably. "We should move on—we do not have time." He spoke more to his uncle than to Song, and his tone was suddenly harsh.

"You are very kind," the old man said gently, as though to apologize, "but my nephew is right."

"You are planning to eat sometime today, aren't you?" Song tried. "That will take time no matter where you are—and at least this way, you won't have to cook it."

They looked at each other. "A very good point," the old man said after a moment.

Song smiled. "So, tell me," she said, "what are your names?"

.*.*.*.

Mi-sun looked out the window and sighed. Ten years, and she still was not used to this place. Somehow, she still expected to see the river sweeping down from the mountains, and part of her was always surprised to be faced with low hills instead.

In every other way, Bucheon seemed less real the longer it had been, like most of her life had been a dream. But her eyes remembered.

Song did not. She had been very small when they had fled, and though she had told Mi-sun her blurry memories of the long hard trail over the mountains and the dusty expanse of the desert, the village they had left to burn was nothing but a faint impression that something had come before all that. And they had done well in Leungnok; it was everything Mi-sun could have hoped for when what was left of Bucheon had ground to an exhausted halt in the west and begun to rebuild. It was a tiny anchor in a wide land where everything from their clothes to their names marked them as refugees from the east. It was not safety—the war was everywhere, and the Fire Nation plagued the west now as much as it had plagued the east ten years ago.

It was not Bucheon, either; but there was no Bucheon anywhere outside of Mi-sun's head.

Mi-sun blinked. She had let her thoughts drift away from her, but her gaze was still fixed outside the window, and Song was coming up the path from town. She had only a handful of radishes in her arms—because the two men who were following her were laden with cabbages and cucumbers and mushrooms.

Mi-sun quickly folded up the last hanbok she had been lingering over—it was still perhaps a little damp, but not enough to mildew—and when they reached the step, she was there to slide the door open. "Song," she said, gently scolding, "you should not make guests carry for you."

Song shuffled her feet, abashed.

"No, no, we insisted," the older of the two men said, before Song had a chance to open her mouth; and then he smiled winningly. "It would have been rude of her to refuse."

Mi-sun pursed her lips, but she couldn't argue with him—she didn't even know his name.

As if Song had read her mind, she shifted the radishes to one side and indicated the older man with her free hand. "This is Mushi, Mother; and this is his nephew, Lee. They were traveling through, and Mushi—um, accidentally—"

"No, please," Mushi said, waving a cabbage forgivingly. "Do not conceal my haplessness from your mother. She should know what she is inviting into her house." He fixed Mi-sun with a sheepish look. "I was desperate for a good cup of tea. Suffice it to say that I chose the wrong plant for my attempt."

Mi-sun could not help but laugh, and undoubtedly he could tell even though she tried to cover her mouth with her hand; but he did not seem like the sort who would mind. It had not been noticeable from a distance, but he was only a few steps away now, and she could see the fading remains of a white jade rash streaking his cheeks. "I'm sure you are not the first," she said, and slid the door open a little wider. "Come, I will find a place for you to put those down; and then I will make you some tea that will not give you a rash."

* * *

><p>"Wait, wait, hang on, there's another rock in my shoe."<p>

Katara turned, narrow-eyed; Sokka's shoes seemed to acquire rocks at approximately the same rate that Sokka happened to want a break from walking. But her glare was wasted: he had already bent over to pull his boot off, and couldn't see her face.

Suki could, but she only grinned with half her mouth and then studiously looked away.

"Relax," Yue advised beside her, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Even if we only went a hundred steps a day, we would still get to Omashu before the end of the summer."

_And then I __**still**__ wouldn't be ready_, Katara thought; but she managed to keep herself from saying it. It would have come out angry, and Yue didn't deserve that.

They really were making decent time, but knowing the deadline that was waiting for them, it didn't feel fast enough. She'd told them all what Roku had said, and they had all agreed: better to find an Earthbending teacher now than wait until she'd mastered Waterbending to even start looking. And Suki had immediately suggested Omashu—the king there was an Earthbender of legendary skill.

Everything was going about as well as it possibly could, considering; but Katara had been short-tempered ever since they'd left the boat behind, and she couldn't seem to stop herself. In Kanjusuk, after the battle, she'd finally been starting to feel like she really could _be_ the Avatar, serve the world the way she was supposed to—it seemed stupid, looking back on it now. She'd been thinking about it like she would have at least a couple years; but eight months? It had been almost half that long since she had left home in the first place, and she wasn't even finished with her own element. Roku's revelation about the comet's approach was throwing her inadequacy into sharp relief, and somehow she doubted that eight months would be enough time to turn herself into what the world needed her to be.

She tilted her head forward to rub her eyes; and when she looked up again, Aang was there. He'd been off ahead of them, drifting through the branches with an ease Katara found suddenly annoying, but he must have noticed that they'd stopped.

He was looking at her with slightly narrowed eyes, in the way that meant he had a pretty good guess as to what she was thinking. "Whatever happens, you've done better than I did," he said after a moment.

She winced, and held out a finger so the others would know she hadn't started talking for no reason. "I don't know," she said, and then, as gently as she could: "You didn't get a chance to try. That's not the same thing as trying and not being good enough."

Yue was watching her somberly; but Sokka, one arm deep in his boot, rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You're acting like the Fire Lord's already crowned himself Emperor of Existence—you don't know whether you're good enough yet. Nobody does."

"I have _eight months_ to master three more elements!" Katara said.

"We've already traveled up a war front, spat in the face of hundreds of years of tradition to get you a teacher, lived through at least three giant battles, broken like a hundred people out of prison, and, oh, yeah, _you spiritually merged with the ocean_." Sokka pulled his arm back out of his boot and flicked a pebble into the underbrush. "We can totally do this."

For a second, Katara wasn't sure whether to scream or laugh; she ended up splitting the difference, covering her face with her hands and sucking in a weird, hiccupy breath.

Somebody moved, and then a hand—Suki's, Katara was pretty sure—came down on her other shoulder. "Dramatics aside," Suki said, "he's right. So let's start walking."

"No, wait," Aang said, "I've got a rock in my shoe."

Katara snorted helplessly, and swung a fist through his shoulder. "I've changed my mind," she said, "let's go back and get Roku. We need a new dead guy."

.*.

She wouldn't have wanted to admit it if anyone had asked, but she did feel a little steadier after. When Aang sped back to them about half an hour later and said, "So, um, there's kind of a problem," she only felt a little bit like crying.

They'd been following the ridge of a small string of hills, but they were surrounded by trees; Aang led them to the side, toward a little cliff with a clear view over the valley beside them, and pointed.

"Yeah," Katara agreed, "that's a problem."

"That's a whole encampment of problems," Suki said.

The other side of the valley was a row of hills also, much higher and wider, almost mountains; but these hills had cleared sides, trees cut away in rough ovals, and each oval had a very familiar style of catapult anchored in the middle. Soldiers in glinting red streamed up and down between the hillside stations and the camp, ringed with fire pits, that sat in the valley.

"I bet we can take them," Sokka said.

"I am sure that we could," Yue said, diplomatic, "but it might not be the best use of our time."

Suki was squinting into the distance along the line of the valley, to the south and then to the north. "They've certainly done a thorough job," she said. "And no wonder, if they're trying to move on Omashu. Not that you need to start panicking again, Katara, but it'll take us forever if we try to go around."

"So we're going through." Sokka sounded a little too pleased.

"In a _stealthy_ way," Katara said, lifting a finger warningly. "Stealthy."

Sokka sighed. "You make everything less fun."

.*.

It was easy enough to stay out of sight on their side of the valley, because the Fire Nation didn't seem to be bothering with it, and the trees there were untouched. Avoiding the central camp was a bit more difficult: when they were on a level with it, it was harder to tell where it began and ended, and twice they had to duck down into the underbrush when a soldier suddenly hurried past.

On the further set of hills, though, they could barely set foot on the slope without crossing a Fire Nation path. The one that connected the catapult stations to each other was so wide that it was nearly a road, and there were dozens more crisscrossing the hillsides—apparently to make it easier for battalions of soldiers to patrol the remaining woodlands. They had three close calls in as many minutes, and the fourth might have ended in disaster if Suki hadn't accidentally edged backwards into a little cave mouth that made a perfect hiding place.

Even after the tromp of boots faded, none of them were all that eager to move from the shelter of the cave. "Break time," Sokka announced, and met with no objections. Yue began drawing in the dirt, trying to map out the paths they'd already passed; and Katara, watching her hands distractedly, didn't notice that Sokka had moved away until he spoke again. "Wow, just how far back does this thing go?"

They all turned to look. The cave mouth wasn't all that big—tall enough to get through if you ducked, but not exactly welcoming, and it didn't let a lot of light in. Katara had figured there was a back wall somewhere in the blackness behind them.

But Sokka's voice was reverberating out of the darkness like he was at least a dozen yards away, and when Aang floated curiously off in the same direction, he just kept going instead of vanishing into a rock face. "Huh," Aang said.

Suki, who had been crouched down to offer corrections to Yue, stood and tapped one fan handle thoughtfully. "We need a light," she said, and ducked out, staying low to the ground; when she came back, she had a bundle of reasonably solid sticks in her hand, and when she'd wrapped some cloth around the ends and coaxed them into lighting, they made decent torches.

Katara lifted the one Suki handed her over her head, and immediately took a step back. "Whoa."

The size of the cave mouth had definitely been deceptive: the cave's roof curved up like the ceiling of a palace hall, and the passage looked wide enough and straight enough to stretch back well beyond the reach of the torch's light.

"So, pretty far, we're thinking," Sokka said, coming back out of the blackness to take a torch for himself. His fingers touched Suki's when he took it from her, and he coughed, sudden and awkward, like he'd accidentally breathed in too quickly. Katara tried not to smirk too much.

"Maybe all the way through," Yue said, and stepped forward, holding her own torch high against the dark.

* * *

><p>Song helped Mother get the food settled, and then noticed how dim it was getting. Sure enough, when she went outside, the ostrich horses were back; they didn't need to be herded home in the evening, they came by themselves for a safe place to sleep. She closed the gate behind them, and latched it with a click. When she came back to the house, though, Lee was not inside; he was sitting on the step, gazing broodily at the ostrich horses in their pen.<p>

"Not hungry?" Song said, sitting down beside him.

"Your mother's still cooking," Lee said, "and I don't drink much tea."

"Really?" Song said. She turned to look over her shoulder: Mother had left the door open to the mild evening air, and Mushi was cradling a cup with great tenderness. "Your uncle certainly loves it."

Lee snorted, and said nothing.

Song looked at him. She hadn't paid much attention to his face before—he hadn't been the one with the rash. But he did have a scar, a wide one that streaked back from his eye and over his temple. It was old, and it didn't look especially tight; but it was certainly noticeable. At least Song could cover hers up when she didn't want people to look at it.

"Did you lose your father, too?" she blurted, and then wanted to slap herself; she was curious, but that had been far from the best way to ask.

Lee went still, staring at the ostrich horses like they knew the answer, and where he was gripping the edge of the step, his knuckles went tight. "Why do you ask?" he said, without looking at her.

"Your—your scar," Song said, abashed. "You've been burned, haven't you? I mean, it looks like mine."

Lee turned at that, wide-eyed. "Yours?"

Song nodded, and lifted her hanbok a little, twisting her leg so he could see it. "I got it when I was little," she explained, "when the Fire Nation raided our village back east—that's when my father died. I thought maybe—since you're traveling with just your uncle—" Lee's face darkened; Song cleared her throat. "Um. Anyway. It was very bad; it got infected, and you can see how it goes into the muscle." She flexed her foot gently, feeling the familiar pull in her calf—it had been all right today, but too much more walking and the ache would have come back.

She glanced up: Lee was looking at it fixedly, brow furrowed. It did look bad, if you weren't used to it; it was thick and dark and her calf crumpled into it oddly. Song flushed, and let her skirt slide down again.

"It still hurts sometimes," she said hurriedly, to cover the sudden awkwardness. "There's good spells and bad spells—last spring I thought I was going to die, I could barely stand to walk on it." She peered a little more closely at Lee's cheek. "Yours is in pretty good shape, though."

Lee jerked in surprise. "Pretty good shape?" he echoed, almost bitterly.

"I didn't mean—it must have been awful," Song said apologetically, "especially over your eye like that. And people must stare all the time. But it has stopped hurting, hasn't it?"

Lee looked at her, swallowing, and said nothing; something about his expression made Song remember how she'd started this conversation, and she winced. Most scars stopped hurting, but there were other things that didn't.

* * *

><p>Yue glanced behind her, and swallowed. It had been a while since the light of the cave entrance had faded away, but she could not stop looking. She was used to being under the clean sharpness of ice; even the thickest wall at home usually showed a little light on the other side. Rock was much more forbidding.<p>

"I don't suppose you happen to have been drawing another map in your head," Sokka said to her, eyeing the tunnel ahead of them. "Because I have to admit, I have absolutely no idea where we are right now."

"I am afraid not," Yue said. The tunnel had turned and twisted many times, and they had chosen randomly at the first few intersections, before they had realized just how big a maze this was. Even keeping a hand on the wall, it could take weeks for them to follow every curve back out.

"Awesome," Sokka said. "What about you?"

Suki was frowning at the walls contemplatively, trailing her free hand along the stone. "Hmm?" she said distractedly.

"Are you feeling the urge to turn around and run screaming back the way we came, except we're lost so we'd all just panic and die alone in the dark?"

"... Not especially," Suki said, giving him a flat look; but then her expression turned thoughtful again. "This—this might be—" She cut herself off, and shook her head. "Never mind. I think we should keep going—we're about as likely to come out the other end as find our way back, and at least the other end doesn't have a Fire Nation camp."

"As far as we know," Sokka added.

"Yue and I both have our bending water," Katara said, "and the walls are pretty damp, if we run out. If we have to, maybe we could cut our way out."

She didn't sound particularly sure, and Yue could understand why: even filling a crack and freezing, water took a long time to break stone, and who knew how much they would have to get through before they would be out. But it was as good an option as hoping they could remember their way back, at this point. Which was not a terribly comforting thought; but Yue tried never to lie to herself.

"Well," Sokka said. "Onward and dankward it is, then."

* * *

><p>"I'm so sorry, I should really just stop talking—"<p>

"No, it's—" Lee paused and let out a breath. "My scar doesn't hurt anymore. You're right," he added slowly; "it did heal up well."

Song smiled at him, relieved. "That's the reason I knew about your uncle's rash."

"... Because my scar healed up well?"

Song laughed. "No, no—because I got mine. Because of what happened." She looked down at her lap, kneading her scarred calf absently. "I wanted to figure out how to make it hurt less, and I couldn't; but I could make other people stop hurting. I've learned everything there is to know from our herbalist—she taught me about white jade first thing, because so many people who aren't from around here get it confused with white dragon."

Lee laughed then, too; but the sound came out sharp and grim. "Funny," he said. "Mine made me want to make other people _start_ hurting."

He looked like he expected her to recoil, and she almost smiled before she caught herself. "I understand," she said instead, very gently. She did: she remembered being eight and hideously angry, watching the other children run and laugh and wishing viciously that their legs would hurt them, too. "I just hope it doesn't happen again. A raid, I mean," she clarified, when Lee raised an eyebrow. "It's safer here than it is right next to the coast, but there are Fire Nation soldiers everywhere these days—especially after those rumors about the Avatar in Jindao."

Lee stiffened; in surprise, Song assumed.

"You hadn't heard?"

"I'd heard," Lee said roughly. "I—hadn't realized word had spread so far."

"Oh—well, we get a lot of traders coming through from the city," Song said. "I just hope we don't have to move again. It was so hard the first time."

"Because of your leg," Lee said.

"Well, yes, that was probably part of it," Song said. "I don't remember it very well; I was very small, and I had a fever for part of the way. But my mother—" She bit her lip. It was unkind, to burden this boy with her worries when he was obviously carrying enough of his own. "It was very hard," she said at last. "And with the army moving east, it's only a matter of time until they reach us." She tapped her feet against the step, and listened to the ostrich horses honking at each other.

"Maybe they won't," Lee said into the quiet. "Maybe they'll pass you by this time."

Song smiled. Lee was an awfully sweet boy. "It's such a waste, isn't it?" she said, instead of telling him he was wrong. "This whole war. We've been fighting for a hundred years, and it hasn't gotten us anywhere. What could possibly be worth that?" She sighed. "Sometimes I think we're only still doing it because we've forgotten how to stop."

"I—don't know," Lee said, his voice so low Song could barely hear it, and then, abruptly, he stood up. "I think your mother's finished," he said, and went inside without another word.


	6. Song, Part 2

Sokka rubbed his hip and made a face at the wall. Stupid wall. It shouldn't have been standing where he had been trying to walk.

It was totally impossible to tell how long they'd been in here, but he was pretty sure it had been too long—and not just because he was tired of stumbling around in a dank tunnel. His torch was visibly shorter than it had been when they'd started out, flames creeping slowly closer to his knuckles, and he doubted they were much closer to getting out of here than they had been an hour ago.

He pinched the bridge of his nose blearily. Was it actually as late as it felt like, or did it just feel like nighttime because it was so dark? "Please tell me we're going to find a spot to sleep soon," he said.

"I think 'find' might be the wrong word," Suki said, "but maybe there'll be a cavern along here somewhere." She was still frowning at the walls a little, like they were familiar but not enough for her to know the way.

Suki was magic, Sokka was pretty sure; it was barely five minutes before their torchlight tumbled around a corner in the wall, which turned out to be an opening that led into a cave. Another cave, anyway. A cave inside a cave? Sokka shook his head.

It was a relief to step into it, and not just because it probably meant they were going to get to sleep soon; the floor was flat, which made a wonderful change from the rough, lumpy bottom of the tunnel. Sokka didn't realize how tense his ankles had been until they suddenly weren't anymore.

He let out a long breath and sat, and Katara dropped down next to him with a thump. Yue was too careful to thump, but she folded herself up and leaned against the cave wall with a sigh. And Suki—Suki was still walking around.

Sokka made a face. Didn't she _ever_ get tired?

He levered himself up again, careful to keep his sputtering torch out of his face. She was standing by the wall, holding her torch close as she peered at something—written on it? Sokka couldn't tell, he was too far away.

He lifted his torch a little higher, and blinked. Come to think of it, the wall she was standing by was very flat; and the pair of rocks he had to slide between to get to her were weirdly shaped, smooth and even and exactly the same length. He turned, when he got to the end, and bent down with his torch to get a better look—and then he leaped back, yelping.

"Sokka? What is it?" Katara had jumped to her feet at the noise.

"A face—right there, there's a dead guy in the rock!" Sokka said, and then paused. "Like, an actual, physical dead guy, this time."

"Shu," Suki said, nonsensically.

Katara and Yue had both come closer to look; now all three of them turned.

"... Has the air gone bad in here or something?" Sokka said.

"It's Shu," Suki said. She was still looking at the wall, but now she took a step back and raised her torch, and Sokka realized abruptly that the wall face was carved into shapes: two people kneeling, a man and a woman, and over Suki's head, their stone lips were touching.

His face went so hot it was a wonder his hair didn't catch on fire.

"Shu?" Katara repeated.

"And Oma," Suki said. She turned around, and held her torch over the other rock—the other tomb, that is—and, sure enough, there was a woman's face carved into it, just like the man's face on the first one.

They all looked at her blankly.

"Haven't any of you ever heard the—no, of course you haven't," she interrupted herself, and laughed. "I didn't know about the moon and the ocean; why should you know about Oma and Shu?"

Sokka frowned. The names were making him think of something, but it wasn't a story—

"Omashu," Yue said suddenly.

Suki nodded. "The legend tells how the city got its name. We're so close to the city, and these tunnels are so deep—but I didn't think they could possibly be the same ones. It would be like we'd—"

"Stumbled across the sacred pool where the moon and ocean live in fish form?" Sokka said.

"Yes," Suki said, giving him a flat look that quickly cracked into a smile, "something like that."

He smiled back at her for a second, until he remembered they were standing in front of a giant stone kiss and had to find somewhere else to look.

"Oma and Shu were the first Earthbenders," Suki said, "or so the legend tells. Oma was from a village to the east of the mountains; Shu was from the west. There were tales in the old days of treasure in the hills, and their villages fought bitterly over the right to it—but Oma and Shu met as they were wandering the forest."

"And fell in love?" Katara said, a little dreamily.

Suki looked a little sheepish. "Well, the way my mother tells it, Oma thought Shu was a bandit and kicked him in the face, the first time," she said. "But eventually, yes. It was dangerous for them to travel the hills, when a battle might break out at any moment; but they were desperate to see each other. They found caves in the mountains, and the badger moles who lived there—they learned how to Earthbend by watching the badger moles, and they made themselves a path through the mountains." She paused and shook her head. "Even if we'd turned around, we never would have gotten out—badger moles are always tunnelling, the connections between the tunnels must change all the time."

"Oh, _excellent_," Sokka said. "So we really are trapped in here forever?"

"Wait a minute—how does the story end?" Katara said.

"Shu was killed," Suki admitted. "Oma used her bending to defeat the soldiers in both villages, and forced them to stop fighting—she founded Omashu right between them, and they put the story in the city's name so they would never forget. And no, we're not trapped in here forever: the story's the answer." She took Yue's torch in her free hand; there was a little canal of water carved out of the rock in front of the giant kissing statues, and she dunked the lit end of the torch in with a hiss.

"Hey—what are you doing?" Sokka demanded.

"Getting us out," Suki said, dousing Katara's torch the same way. She turned to him next; he clutched his torch protectively.

"Getting us out with _death_," Sokka said. "Seriously, how is this helping?"

Suki smiled at him, slow and a little uneven. "My mother always ended the story the same way," she said. "I didn't understand it then, but now I think I do." She reached out, and he'd brought the torch so close that her knuckles touched his chest when she wrapped her hand around it. "Love shines brightest in the dark," she said, very low, and slid the torch easily from his suddenly weak grasp.

"Um," Sokka said raspily; and then she doused both the remaining torches at once, and plunged them into darkness.

* * *

><p>Zuko had been hoping to hate it; anger and disgust would have been a welcome anchor. But the food was delicious, and Mi-sun was a generous host. By the time the table was cleared, Zuko was so full the thought of walking made him grimace, and Uncle Iroh didn't seem any more eager to go.<p>

"You should stay," Song said, over a final cup of tea. "It's already so dark—how far could you possibly get? And you'll need a place to sleep no matter what."

Zuko grimaced. He should know better than to let Uncle acquiesce; this was no time to linger self-indulgently, when Azula might come for them at any moment. But his belly was full and his mind was clouded, and when Uncle glanced at him, he looked down at his bowl and said nothing.

He regretted it almost the moment he woke the next morning: when he sat up to stretch out the night's aches, he saw it. The sky to the north held a rising column of smoke, and his heart began to pound at the sight of it.

Mi-sun had laid down mats for them in the main room, so it was easy enough to keep an eye on the window while he collected his things. There was yelling, growing steadily louder, from the same direction as the path back to town—but Azula, Zuko thought suddenly, would never allow her soldiers to be so undisciplined.

He paused and looked up. There were soldiers visible now, at the far end of the path, morning sunlight gleaming on red armor—but that was all. No flag, no royal insignia. It was not Azula.

He stared down at his hands, which were clutching his pack tightly. It was not Azula; these soldiers were not looking for them. They could go, now, and keep whatever head start they had left. It was eminently reasonable. He should keep going, not stand here thinking about the scar on Song's leg, or the way she'd looked when she'd said she understood him.

Something, some small sound or motion, made Zuko turn around. Uncle had woken at some point, and was sitting up, watching him. He had that look on his face—that patient, measuring look, like he had all the time in the world to wait and see what Zuko would do.

Zuko gritted his teeth. He was being a fool. Azula would laugh, to see his indecision.

But indecision made the choice for him—the yelling must have woken Song. Before Zuko could even figure out what he wanted to say in the face of Uncle's expectant stare, she came dashing in, bare feet thumping against the wood floor. "The ostrich horses!" she cried, and threw herself out the door.

Zuko didn't decide to follow; his feet simply went without asking. Song was right to worry: the animal pen was between the house and the trees, near the path, and the soldiers already had their swords out.

Song reached the gate first, and yanked it open—the ostrich horses were all honking nervously, but they hadn't panicked yet, and they made no move to run. "Come _on_," Song yelled, and darted in. "Come on, go!"

The nearest ostrich horse shifted uncertainly. Song hurried toward it, ready to scare it into action—better to have to round them up later than buy replacements, Zuko assumed—but the nearest soldier was already lining up her hands, fire blooming at her fingertips.

Zuko cursed his own stupidity even as he lifted his hands, and the fireball that he threw collided with the soldier's in a whirl of flame, both of them missing Song's head by at least two feet.

Zuko could hear Song gasp even from several yards away, but he could not take the time to look over and evaluate her expression; the soldier was advancing on him, and she hurled flame at his head with a whirling kick. He blocked it with a spinning shield, and then sent fire streaming back at her, three punches in a row—she dodged the first two perfectly, but the third caught her shoulder, and she tumbled back with an angry cry.

Another was coming up toward his side, and Zuko turned a little too late; but the man was already stumbling, the back of his uniform smoking where Uncle had blasted him from the front step.

Mi-sun was behind Uncle, a sword clutched in both hands, and she rushed forward, stabbing down through the man's back before he could get up. There was a terrible look on her face, an old and festering anger rising, and she yanked the bloody sword back out and didn't look a bit sorry.

Zuko threw another gout of flames with his next punch, forcing a third soldier to duck or burn, and then spun into a kick that caught the man in the gut. It was almost pleasant, to act without thinking, without having to make any choice more difficult than where to move next; and Zuko was almost sorry to see the soldiers slow.

He should have expected it. They were not infantry, but raiders, meant to strike weak targets quickly, to burn villages and slaughter animals and wreak destruction. They had not come for a fight. At one soldier's shout, three of them launched streams of flame at the house to cover their retreat, and then they were gone again, lost among the trees.

Uncle had managed to turn half of the fire away, but some had struck its target, and for a moment the only sound was the crackle of the wall that had been struck as it burned. Mi-sun's bloody sword was still raised uncertainly, like she wasn't sure whether she ought to plunge it into Uncle's side; and Uncle, because he was an idiot, was simply standing there, looking at her calmly.

She stared at him, and then suddenly lifted the sword away, tilting it back so that it rested on her shoulder; a thin line of blood soaked into the clean white shoulder of her dress. She squeezed her eyes shut, and let out a slow breath. "I am sorry," she said, very quietly. "Can you forgive me?"

Uncle reached up to touch her shoulder gently, and then stepped away and around the house, crushing the fire away with a methodical sweep of his hands.

Zuko turned. Song was still behind him, one hand resting on an ostrich horse's side, staring at him with wide eyes. What she thought did not matter, Zuko knew, but he could not convince himself to move; he only stood there like a fool, waiting.

"You—" Song said, and then stopped abruptly, drawing a quick breath. "Your hand is burned."

Zuko blinked and looked down. It was true: the side of his hand was blistered. That first soldier's kick—he must not have managed to block the flame completely.

When he looked up again, Song was watching Uncle damp the fire at the far corner of the wall into smoke, but the moment Zuko moved, she looked at him again. She swallowed, and then her expression firmed into determined lines. "Let me clean it," she said, "and wrap it up."

Zuko hesitated.

"Quickly," Song said, looking over her shoulder at the sky. "The village is still burning; we should hurry."

.*.

He let her lead him back inside and clean his hand with water; it wasn't until she was tucking the loose end of the makeshift bandage under that he suddenly realized just what she had said.

"Hurry?" he said. "What do you mean?"

"You're—Firebenders," Song said, awkward, a little uncertainty caught around the edges of her voice. "Your uncle, the way he put out that fire on the wall—not even an Earthbender can put a fire out that quickly. And dumping rocks on a building doesn't help if there are people inside it." She fixed him with a look that was almost pleading.

"You're planning to go _toward_ that?" Zuko said, pointing with his uninjured hand to the thickening column of smoke in the sky. "And if the soldiers are still there? What will you do then?"

"Stop them," Song said, which was one of the more ridiculous things Zuko had heard in his life. Mi-sun might have a sword, and clearly knew how to use it; but Zuko was having serious trouble picturing Song killing anybody.

But her mouth was pressed into a tight flat line, and she was, forgetfully, gripping his bandaged hand so hard it stung.

"You're Fire Nation," she said. "I saw you, I understand; but that scar on your face is still from a burn, I can tell. Whoever you really are, whatever you're running from, it must be complicated."

Zuko snorted despite himself. That was something of an understatement.

"But I don't think this is complicated," she continued. "There are people back in town who are suffering for no good reason, and you can save them. Don't you want to?"

_No_, Zuko thought, suddenly panicked; but he couldn't make his mouth say it. Whatever it was that was wrong in him, the thing Father and Azula saw so clearly, this stupid girl had somehow figured out how to make it worse. "They won't want me to," he said instead, forcing it out through the tightness in his throat.

Song eyed him askance for a moment, and then smiled, lopsided. "I think they might be willing to accept it if the other option is burning to death," she said, and dragged him out the door.

.*.*.*.

Mushi and Mother were already waiting at the head of the path, under the trees; one of them had relatched the gate to the ostrich horses' pen, and Mother had wiped her sword clean, bloody streaks on her skirt showing where. "Quickly," Mother said, and they hurried into the woods.

It was almost surreal—it was quiet in the forest, calm, morning sun still a little gold through the leaves, and the only sign that anything was wrong was the smoke that still spiraled up ahead of them.

By the time they reached Leungnok, the soldiers were all gone; but they had left a cluster of burning houses behind them, soot-streaked people screaming in the street. Mushi stepped toward the nearest house with his hands upraised, and drew flames away from the door and into the dirt.

"No—no, they're back," Kyung cried, "they're back!" She was kneeling in the dirt a few strides away, sleeves blackened and flaking, and she hurled herself at Mushi with a shout.

Song darted forward and caught her before she could reach him. "Stop," she said loudly, "stop, he's putting it out," and she repeated it until Kyung stopped fighting her and went limp in her arms with a sob. She turned to face the street, everyone who had looked up when Kyung had shouted and was now watching Mushi with hostile eyes, and said it again. "He's helping us—don't anyone touch him, he's putting it out."

She could see Lee out of the corner of her eye, standing tense and silent at her shoulder; but Mushi seemed to take no notice whatsoever, and bent with careful motions of his hands until all the flames were gone.

Kyung was still in her arms, with a nasty burn along her forearm that Song needed to take a look at—and she couldn't do it with Lee standing there looming. "Well?" she said. "Don't make your uncle do it all alone."

"Song," he said, but she didn't let him finish.

"Put out that fire," she said, and to her own ears it was the sharpest she had ever heard her voice sound. "You can help them, but you aren't. Put out that fire, or you'll make them right to look at you like that."

Lee took a startled step back. Song drew Kyung down to kneel on the ground and started rolling up her sleeve; but she could hear Lee over her shoulder, drawing in a breath, and the crackle of flames began to grow quieter.

.*.*.*.

It took a long time for the villagers to stop watching him warily, but there were a lot of fires to put out; Zuko focused on his hands and tried not to look around, and soon enough they were busying themselves with recovering the wounded from the houses he'd extinguished. They still looked at him strangely, he could see it—but they let him alone. When the last flames had died away, the woman who had leapt at Uncle brought them each a bowl of rice. Her eyes were not friendly, but she also did not stab them with the chopsticks.

Song seemed to know when their bowls were almost empty; she came and knelt down beside him just as he was fishing the last hunk of rice out of the bottom of his. "Thank you," she said. "I—I'm sorry I yelled at you, before. I do know what a risk it was for you to come into town with us like that, and Firebend in front of everyone." She touched the back of his hand gently. "It was good of you."

Zuko stared down at his knees, and could think of absolutely nothing to say.

She went away, after a minute; but then she came back again, and this time she wasn't alone. "These are for you," she said to Uncle, indicating the two ostrich horses beside her with a wave of her hand.

"You are far too generous," Uncle began, reaching for the small purse at his belt, but Song shook her head.

"They're a gift," she said gently. "Please, just take them," and she handed the reins to Uncle Iroh. "To help you on your journey, wherever it is you're going," she added, and smiled.

* * *

><p>"I still can't believe it," Sokka said. "I mean, seriously. How do you get from 'love shines brightest in the dark' to 'blow out all your torches and you'll be able to see the phosphorescent rocks on the ceiling that'll show you how to get out of here'?"<p>

"Well, I thought about kissing you to see if that would do it," Suki said blandly, "but that seemed a little too literal."

She was careful not to turn around, but that next sound was pretty definitely Sokka choking helplessly on his own tongue, and she couldn't help smiling. Katara, in front of her, shot Suki a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder, but she was smiling, too.

They weren't quite out yet, but they were definitely close; there was light shining around the corner ahead of them. Dim and reddish and indirect—it was evening, then, which meant they'd been in the tunnels for at least a day. It had been so hard to tell, inside, except by the rumbling of their stomachs. And no one had felt hungry when they'd thought they were lost—they hadn't felt comfortable enough to eat until after the glowing trail on the ceiling had appeared.

Even if it had only been an hour, though, it would have been a relief to step out into open air, and even Yue did a little twirl in celebration. "I thought I might never see the sky again," she said to Suki, and kept her face turned up to it even as they started along the path ahead of them.

This side of the mountains was rockier, steeper, and Suki had to pay attention or else fall on her face, which was why she didn't look up until Katara said, "Oh, no, no—you have to be kidding."

"What?" Suki said, lifting her head, and then she saw.

They were not quite into the foothills, and there was a rocky hill ahead of them—Omashu, Suki knew it, because it was the only city in the area. Carved from the hilltop by Earthbending, with a wall raised from the stone around it; and draping over the wall, so large they could see them even from here, were great red banners, setting sun glinting off the gold thread that outlined the three-pronged black flame.

"Well, that's a bad sign," Sokka said.

* * *

><p>"Sir!" the lookout shouted. "Sir, ships ahoy!"<p>

Mizan glanced out the front panes of the bridge, and sighed. It was something of a relief to hear it; whether the ships were friendly or not, they were _something_, and meant there would soon be a clear decision to make.

Mizan did not much care for aimlessness, but there had not been many other options available, in the days since they had fled Port Tsao. Princess Azula would not have stood for their presence; and the port authorities would not have dealt kindly with them for firing their weapons within the port's borders, never mind that both ships involved had been Fire Nation. She did not know where General Iroh and Prince Zuko were planning to go—she did not even know whether they had a plan, and it seemed more than likely that they did not.

She did not wish to abandon them to their fates; she liked General Iroh, even if he served far too much tea. And she shuddered to think what trouble they would get into without someone to get them out. But she had no way to follow them, and nowhere else worth going—not with only one ship. She was her own master now, and Azula would not deal with her kindly, which meant they were no longer a Fire Nation ship in any way that counted; but she would not siege Jindao or storm Da Su-Lien with only one ship.

She stepped out of the bridge, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the setting sun. "What kind?" she shouted.

"Not sure," Isani yelled back, but a little more slowly. "The sun is behind them, it's difficult to see—" She cut herself off, and Mizan glanced up: Isani was still squinting through the spyglass, and she was too far up for her expression to be readable. "I think they may be pirates, sir," she called down at last, tone almost dry.

Mizan could understand why. Pirates, of all things—probably Earth Kingdom, this close to the coast. They were practically on the same side, now that Azula had declared them all criminals and traitors; but the pirates wouldn't know it.

She prepared as best she could. She turned the ship so as to present their narrow and heavily-armored bow to the oncoming vessels; and she kept the crew on deck, ready for action, but let the catapults lie conspicuously empty and untouched. She was hoping to talk to them, but she wasn't a fool.

The ships slowed as they drew closer. There were three of them, light fast sailing vessels, and they were wooden—definitely Earth Kingdom. Cautious, which Mizan could understand. Her ship was clearly of Fire Nation design, but they were not flying a Fire Nation banner anywhere, and the usual red armor was stifling at this latitude; most of the crew was wearing brown.

"An unusual reception," someone called across, when the lead ship was close enough. "We cannot tell by looking—what is your allegiance?"

"Oh, and I should tell you why? So you will know whether or not to sink me?" Mizan shouted back. "Fine incentive."

The sailor laughed; it was not very audible, but quite visible as the ship came up alongside. "True enough," she yelled. "I see this is a matter for the captain." She went below, and came back up with a man in rather plain clothes, completely indistinguishable from anyone else on deck.

"A Fire Nation ship that flies no colors," he called. "Who do you serve?"

Mizan laughed. "No one, at the moment," she said. "You are pirates, are you not?"

Something flitted over the captain's face, but Mizan could not pick out quite what expression it was. "Something of the sort," he said.

"And you could use a decent ship," she said, tone neutral.

"Sir," Isani said; she had climbed down from the lookout's perch, and now she put a hand on Mizan's shoulder. "Sir, what are you doing?"

"Keeping us alive for a while, I hope," Mizan murmured. To the pirate captain, she shouted, "Surely a steamship would be a fine addition to your fleet."

The captain said nothing for a long moment, and Mizan was tempted to signal for the catapults to be loaded; but at last, he yelled back, "I cannot test your intentions from here. But I do not work alone—we sail from Dou Ying Island, with many other ships like these. We will take you there, and see whether you can be trusted."

"I hope you're thinking this through, sir," Isani said.

"Oh, I am," Mizan said, and smiled. She could not stop Princess Azula from tracking Iroh and Zuko down; but there were a thousand other ways to be a hindrance, and Mizan suspected it was time to try some of them.


	7. Omashu, Part 1

This is another one that follows the same basic outline as a canonical episode; again, hopefully it's not too boring! There are internal Fire Nation politics at work in Yin's portion of this chapter that should become increasingly clear as we progress through this book and into Book Three, so don't worry if it's not immediately obvious exactly what's up (and do feel free to ask questions in reviews or by PM, if you really want the background info right away). Aside from that, the only thing left to note is that Tom-Tom is technically about two but is a naturally quiet kid, which is another way of saying I have no confidence in my ability to write convincing dialogue for a two-year-old. /o\ Anyway, on to the chapter!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: Omashu<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>Yin looked out over the harbor and drew in a long breath. Undoubtedly there was no real difference in the air, no true distinction to be drawn between the wind in the colonies and the wind that swept Phnan Chnang. But it felt different anyway, to be here to breathe it.<p>

"I'd offer to turn in your reports, sir," Kishen said, "but I think your news of the Avatar will mean they'll want to talk to you personally."

"Yes," Yin said, "of course."

"There will be time," Kishen said.

Yin turned to look at him over her shoulder. He was watching her, thoughtful, with a very small smile.

"If they plan to send us back to the Earth Kingdoms, as they undoubtedly do, we will likely be given cargo to transport—tanks, soldiers, supplies." He shrugged. "It will take time to organize, to record, to tally, to load. There will be time for you to go home, sir."

"Duty first," Yin said; and she managed to make her tone stern, but she could feel a smile creeping onto her mouth.

"Of course, sir," Kishen said, perfectly straight-faced, and bowed.

.*.

Yin's conversation with the admiral was less awkward than she had been expecting; the man was like a stone wall, and though he must have been shocked to hear her report of the Avatar's presence, he never looked it. He listened attentively and took her report with a cursory bow, and the only sign of any distress was the irregular twitch in the back of his hand.

Of course, they were not in the colonies anymore—there were more eyes on him than there had been on Admiral Shalah, and to express vocal dismay at the Avatar's return was to doubt the Fire Lord's power, in a certain sense. Yin had been mindful, too, when she had written down her observations. She had been careful not to stray far from the physical facts, and those were well in the Fire Lord's favor: the Avatar was a girl, perhaps sixteen, with some Waterbending ability and no apparent control over her other powers. That she was strong and skilled and felt her responsibilities keenly—these things were merely Yin's opinion, and had no place in a formal report.

She had Kishen pass along orders for shore leave to be given. He was right, there would be time; everyone would welcome the opportunity. Besides, even without counting the commandeered ships that would now be returning to their previous posts, Yin commanded nearly a hundred vessels, and over half their crews called the eastern islands home. Which was not unusual, in the Navy: enlistment was a common choice in the islands, if you were too poor to travel to the mainland, and Yin had been far from the only girl in her village to enlist rather than marry early.

It had been so long, she thought to herself, swinging a leg over Kiri's back. Phirun would be—nineteen? Was that even possible? He might be taller than she was, now. And Bopha—Bopha would be eighteen at least. She had cried the day Yin had left, Yin remembered suddenly, and the thought struck something in Yin's chest like a hammer falling.

If she wasn't careful, she was going to end up crying all over Mother.

* * *

><p>"I don't get it," Sokka said. "If the Fire Nation already has Omashu, then what were all those catapults back there about?"<p>

"It didn't go quietly," Suki said, and pointed. "Look. Down there, across the bridge—that's not a Fire Nation camp."

She was right, Katara could tell: nobody built makeshift structures out of stone unless they were Earthbenders.

"Oh, I see. So the city's full of Fire Nation soldiers, and they're surrounded by Earthbenders trying to retake Omashu, and _they're_ surrounded by Fire Nation soldiers trying to stop them." Sokka threw up his hands. "It all makes sense now."

.*.

The tunnel had come out relatively close to Omashu; the Fire Nation might have had the west side of the mountains covered, but they had not taken the east, and it was a short and quiet trip to the level ground around the city.

Omashu reminded Katara a little of the Southern Air Temple, the way it had been shaped out of the stone, but it was much easier to get to. The nearby land was hilly, but there were ridges whose tops had been flattened—by Earthbending, no doubt—and the nearest of these was connected to the city by at least two bridges that spanned the ravine between.

"Easy to defend," Suki said assessingly.

"But also easy to siege," Yue pointed out. "It is not like Kanjusuk, where we could flee back across the ice. Earthbenders could tunnel out easily, and you would never know it; but for Firebenders, it is a cage."

"Very true," someone else said, a woman, and Katara had already begun to nod before she noticed that the voice was neither Suki's nor Yue's.

"Who—ack!"

Katara whirled around. There was indeed a woman there, dressed in worn clothes with a green band in her hair; and she had an arm around Sokka's throat, and at least half a dozen other people behind her.

"It is a long way from Kanjusuk," the woman said, eyeing the medallion that hung from Yue's pike. "Who would travel so far to get to the middle of a war?"

Aang, hovering by Katara's shoulder, sighed. "It's like people think we don't know we're in danger," he said, and he sounded so much like Sokka that Katara had to work to keep a smile off her face.

_Here we go again_, she thought. "The Avatar," she said aloud, because the woman was still waiting for an answer, and bowed.

.*.

The explanation was, as always, long, but Katara thought she might be getting better at delivering it—she was more sure of herself now, and that helped immensely. "I've come to find a master to teach me Earthbending," she finished, and bowed again, just in case it might help. "Could you—maybe let my brother go?"

Granted, the woman wasn't holding his throat very tightly anymore; her grip had loosened at about the same rate that her eyebrows had climbed her forehead as she listened to Katara. But Sokka was still making a face that suggested he was getting less air than he wanted to.

The woman eyed her. "How did you get here through the Fire Nation camps," she said, "if you are their enemy?"

Suki stepped forward. "We came through the Cave of Two Lovers," she said. "We stumbled across the other end; and when we found the tomb in the middle, I knew we had found the caves from the legend."

The woman looked measuringly at Suki. "You are from the Earth Kingdoms?"

"The southern islands," Suki said. "It hasn't been that long since we were broken away from you. We haven't forgotten everything."

The woman watched her a moment longer, and then slowly unwound her arm from Sokka's neck; he stumbled away, and had to clear his throat once, but Katara was pretty sure he hadn't actually been hurt. "Well," she said, "you were wise to come here to look for a master. King Bumi is the best Earthbender in Omashu, and his skills are legendary throughout Gamban."

"Great," Sokka said. "So he's in your camp down there, then?"

The woman pursed her lips. "Unfortunately, no." She gestured toward the city, the great red banners hanging over the walls, and Katara's heart began to sink even before she said, "When I said the best Earthbender _in_ Omashu, I meant it."

.*.*.*.

Taneko was sorry to say it, and watched with sincere regret as the Avatar's face fell. Many rumors had come down to them from the north, so she had not been surprised to hear the girl say she was the Avatar—or at least not as much as she might have been only a year ago. Whether it was true, Taneko did not know; but the girl had to be either honest to a fault or else mad, to be willing to call herself the Avatar when she traveled along the edges of Fire Nation territory.

And if it was true, and this was the same girl everyone was speaking of, she had traveled a very long way indeed to find nothing but disappointment.

Taneko hesitated before she spoke again. She did not wish to take advantage of the Avatar's desperation, but any potential for aid could not be ignored. "However, Avatar, your timing is auspicious. It is difficult for us, without our king—but the Fire Nation has imprisoned him in metal, and we cannot get him out. We have tried, more than once, and lost many in the attempts."

"What, and you want us to do it?" the boy said, incredulous.

"No," Taneko said. "We have a new plan now, and I want you to help." She remembered herself, and bowed. "That is, if you are willing, Avatar."

* * *

><p>It was strange, the little things that had changed. The old tree Yin had climbed when she wanted to get away from Khunna's constant nagging had lost its top in a storm; and the big old rock the road was forced to curve around had acquired a broad crack in the top—moss was starting to grow out of it.<p>

But the house looked the same—so much the same that Yin's eyes turned wet at the sight of it, and when Mother came to the door, Yin had to blink six times before she was anything more than a blur.

Mother was still for a long moment, just looking at her; but then, at last, she smiled. "You always did come home just in time for supper," she said, and laughed.

.*.

Khunna was married, of course—she had been before Yin had left, that was no surprise. She lived with her husband only a little further down the road, but they had gone into the city to market, and would not be back for another few days. "She will be so angry to have missed you," Mother said, shaking her head.

Phirun and Bopha were down in the lower field, but the sun was dropping low, and soon enough something loud and grabby hit Yin in the back as she was turning to carry her pack inside. "You never _tell_ us when you're coming," Bopha said grumpily into Yin's shoulderblade, arms tight around her ribs; and then they both went down under Phirun's weight.

A true enough complaint, Yin thought, trying to keep her face out of the dirt. But this made only the second time she had been home since she enlisted—Bopha did like to exaggerate.

"Oh, let her up," Mother called from inside, and they untangled themselves sheepishly and dusted each other off. Phirun _was_ taller, quite a bit—but Yin still had an inch on him. She took the opportunity to muss his hair, which he had always hated; and he must truly have missed her, because he smiled instead of shoving her hand away.

.*.

Supper was nothing special, in the strictest sense; Mother had not known to prepare anything exceptional. But there had been times, sitting in Jindao or sailing north with Zhao, when Yin would have eaten dirt if she could only have done it here.

It was foolish, Yin knew, but everything here seemed so pleasant, so quiet and untouched—it made her reluctant to ruin it by telling them everything that had happened. She was sitting here with her mother, eating rice from her own old bowl; compared to that, watching from the deck of her own flagship as the spirit of the ocean dropped a wave on her head seemed simply unreal, like it had happened in another world entirely.

But then Mother set down her bowl and said, "We should follow Khunna, in another day or two—it has been a long time since we have traded in the city," and across the low table, Phirun and Bopha grew quiet.

"Do we have to?" Phirun said, and he sounded so like his twelve-year-old self that Yin almost laughed—but his next words wiped the smile from her face. "Mother, you haven't forgotten what happened last time we went to Phnan—"

"What happened—" Yin interrupted, but Bopha cut her off with a bitter little chuckle.

"Phnan," she spat, heavy with sarcasm, "whatever do you mean? It's Funing."

"Bopha," Mother said, less sharply than Yin was expecting. "We will need water, to rinse the dishes."

"Of course, Mother," Bopha said, pursing her lips, and stood up.

.*.

Bopha and Phirun had spent a long day in the fields; they, Phirun pointed out, had not had an ostrich horse to carry them around. They brought back the water, and then went to lie down on their mats, and despite their best efforts, Mother was barely done with the first bowl before Bopha began to snore.

"What happened in the city?" Yin said quietly, passing Mother a pair of chopsticks.

"Small things," Mother said. "Nothing you have not seen before; but the last time we went to the city, they were too young to notice."

Yin bit her lip. She still remembered the first time it had occurred to her that the central district housed nobles—nobles who were all from the mainland. It had been about three seconds before the first time she had realized that the guards were not there because of the war; they were there to keep people like her out.

"You know the things they say," Mother said suddenly into the quiet, setting the clean chopsticks aside to dry. "You must hear them constantly, as we do. The war will bring harmony; when all are united under the Fire Lord, there will be peace at last." She turned the second bowl over, dipping it again into the basin of washwater. "Unity." She shook her head.

"You don't think it is possible?" Yin said carefully.

Mother set the bowl down, but did not pick up another; she leaned her forearms against the rim of the basin, and her hands curled into loose fists. "I don't think it is the truth," she said. "Perhaps you have not heard, in the colonies—they renamed the great city on Svay Vinouk again. After the monument to the Fire Lord. The Fire Fountain."

Yin could not hold back a snort. The city of Batampong had been officially renamed North Chungling long before even Mother had been born, and Yin had learned, as all the children on the nearby islands did, to call it North Chungling if a mainlander was near. The habit had become constant in the Navy, where the officers were more often from the central mainland than not; but she had never cared for the name herself, and Fire Fountain City was even worse. "It's like they think all they have to do is repaint the map, and we will forget," she said.

"Perhaps we will, if they do it long enough," Mother said, and she sounded suddenly very tired. "Phirun and Bopha—they have learned to be angry, but not how to hide it, and they do not remember everything."

The purges, Mother meant, that had taken Father from them; Bopha had been only a few months old, Phirun barely two.

Yin had been eleven.

"And I," Mother said, "I am angry, too; and tired of hiding it. I remember." Her hands curled tighter. "They say unity, but they do not mean it. They mean uniformity."

_Funing Chang_, Yin remembered Admiral Shalah saying, dropping the _p_ and twisting the city's name until it sounded as mainland as anything else. And then _I understand_—from the north, she had said, and her name bore it out. Had the cities there had different names, too, long ago? Did the people there still use them under their breath, still tell them to their children, or had they forgotten?

"They have been trying it on the islands for centuries, and it has brought us only pain." Mother dipped her fists into the water. "And after a hundred years of war, they think the Earth Kingdoms will abide it so readily?"

"They won't," Yin said, thinking of Jindao. She had been posted there with Zhao for longer than she cared to remember; and even in the darkest hours, when news had sometimes come every other day of another Earth Kingdom village swallowed by flames, the whispers of rebellion had never stopped. It had irritated Zhao intensely at the time.

"No," Mother agreed. "They won't."

* * *

><p>Father was still talking, but Mai was no longer listening—it didn't matter anyway, he neither expected nor wanted a response from her.<p>

He was barely even saying anything, nattering on about the situation in the city and the weakness of the siege—and Mother was clutching Tom-Tom to herself and nodding along like everything that came out of Father's mouth wasn't a blatant untruth.

Father insisted on these walks. They were pointless, in Mai's opinion; they never ventured below the upper avenues of the city, so the ordinary citizens Father was hoping to reassure with his confidence probably couldn't even see them. And it didn't help that they were relentlessly boring.

Mai wished later that she were able to say she'd known it was coming, but, to be honest, she was just searching for something interesting to look at—she didn't realize that the oddly-shaped leaf hanging off the roof above her was the toe of someone's shoe until the guard in front of Father yelped and fell to the ground, and an Earthbender landed on his chest.

She had been practicing with her darts and her knives day in and day out since they had moved to New Ozai—she'd hated it at the time because there had been nothing else to do, but now, for a split second, she was grateful. Even as she flinched away, her hands were automatically going to her sleeves, and they came out with three darts each, pinned and ready between her knuckles.

She threw half at the shoe-toe, and was rewarded with a triple thunk and a yelp; but there were six more people jumping off the roof—seven—eight—

Mother curled Tom-Tom close with one hand and punched out with the other—she wasn't a Firebender, but she had an excellent right hook, and she caught one of the attackers right on the chin. Tom-Tom, still in her other arm, looked dazed by the sudden excitement and then burst into tears.

Mai swung around hurriedly toward Father. He had been knocked to the ground, the guards around him busy fending off more rebels. There was a woman standing over him, and Mai hurled her other three darts at her—or she was about to, at least, when an Earthbender suddenly slid the ground sideways under her foot, and her darts went wide. No matter, she thought; she had more.

She slid another six into her hands, and threw again; but this time they were struck in midair by a rope of water that threw them to the side before it splattered apart.

A Waterbender? Mai turned. Where had the Omashu rebels gotten a Waterbender?

No, two of them—two girls, Mai saw, a moment before the wide globe of water speeding toward her swallowed her. She had caught her breath a moment before, so she didn't waste time worrying. She was nearly out of darts, and they would be too light to make it through the water—but darts were not the only things she had up her sleeves. She had been trying this with fish in New Ozai's fountains for weeks now: she took aim through the water, adjusted for the curve of light, and threw.

She couldn't hear through the liquid, but she could see one of the girls cry out, the midsize blade deep in her arm, and the water wobbled and then dropped; Mai tumbled to the paving stones with it, and began to cough as it rolled away into the gutters.

The first thing she heard when her ears were empty again was Mother, screaming, "No!"

"Back, now!" one of the rebels cried over Mother's screeching, and though Mai dragged herself up far enough to hurl another set of darts after them, they did not find their targets—water was still streaming down Mai's face.

She rubbed at her face with her sleeve, irritated; but her shirt was soaked, too, so it didn't do much good. "Mother?" she said, briefly worried—but she could not see any blood, even though Mother wouldn't stop crying. "Father—" but he was all right, too. He had managed to get to his feet at some point, and his fists were still smoking.

"Mai," he said, and then she realized what was wrong.

Mother's arms were empty, and Mai could not hear Tom-Tom crying.

.*.*.*.

"Shh, shh, good boy," Suki muttered absently, curling a hand around the kid's head to keep him close. He was definitely at least a year old, maybe two, but very quiet—maybe he was still a little dazed.

The plan the rebels had outlined was simple enough. "New Ozai" had been appointed a Fire Nation governor in the early days after the attack, before those who had fled the city had organized themselves and begun their siege. He and his family took a stroll every evening—stupid thing to do in a city under siege, in Suki's opinion, but the governor hadn't asked her.

They hadn't wanted to kill him, only to take him, so that he could be traded for King Bumi; but there had been quite a few guards, and his daughter and her throwing darts had been an unexpected complication. Taneko had called them off when Yue had been struck—it would be easier to try again than to bring anyone back to life.

But Suki had managed to snatch the governor's son at the last moment; and now they were running.

"Where are we even going?" Sokka said beside her, breathless, and Suki glanced up.

The Earthbenders in the team had lifted them back up to the street above, where they'd come from; but they didn't seem to be heading back to the tunnel they'd come in by.

Taneko had heard him—she was looking back over her shoulder and grinning. "Trust me," she yelled, "this way will be faster," and then she leapt up onto the edge of a nearby wall and abruptly disappeared from view.

"Faster to get us _where_?" Sokka yelped.

"No, it's—there's a chute," Katara called back, and Suki, a step ahead of Sokka, could see that she was right. The Earthbender they had left behind hadn't just been guarding the tunnel entrance—she'd been preparing, and when Katara stepped up to the wall there was a cart waiting, fitted perfectly to the chute, and two more beside it.

"These are for you," the woman said, "because you cannot bend yourselves down—hurry!"

"Quick," said another woman—one of the nonbenders, Suki realized, and she climbed in and pulled Katara down to sit behind her. Another, a bender this time, slid in behind. He gave the first woman a sharp nod, and she pushed; and the cart rumbled away down the drop.

"Oh, no," Sokka said, shaking his head. "No, no, _absolutely not_—"

"No time," Suki said, and grabbed his hand.

Yue got in first; one of the Earthbenders was helping her, and despite the hand she had clamped around the throwing blade in her arm, blood was soaking her sleeve. Suki resolved to keep a close eye on her—she looked relatively steady, but losing blood was the kind of thing that snuck up on you, and a cart flying down a chute over a city wasn't a great place to pass out.

Suki would have gone last, but she had to keep the kid safe, so she squeezed herself into the middle with the kid on her lap and pulled Sokka in behind. "We're good," she told the Earthbender, and the woman nodded and gave them a shove before Sokka even had a chance to contradict her.

.*.

The chute system evidently covered the entire city—they could probably have gone anywhere, but one of the benders ahead of them had raised uneven walls across the chutes that branched away from their route, to channel them the right way. And it really wasn't so bad, after the first sickening drop was over; Sokka was just being dramatic. Although Suki couldn't say she minded him hiding his face in the back of her shoulder. Mikari would have made fun of her forever, Suki thought ruefully, if she were here.

They slowed as they neared the city wall, the angle of the chute flattening out steadily, and an Earthbender waiting at the bottom stopped them with a jerk that made Sokka's hand tighten on Suki's arm. The Earthbender had already punched a temporary staircase out of the wall, and in moments they were back on the ground.

.*.

"Well," Taneko said, once they had been ferried back across the ravine on a spur of rock. "Not quite what we were hoping for."

Suki glanced down at the kid in her arms; he had taken something of a shine to her fans, and was trying and failing to yank one out of her belt.

"Not the governor himself," one of the rebels conceded, "but surely the man would give much to have his son back—"

"He is not a thing to be bartered," Yue said, a little stiffly—mostly the pain, Suki guessed, since Yue was usually polite even when she was angry. Katara couldn't heal her arm without getting the blade out first, and it was slow going; the little knife curved back on itself like a barbed thorn.

"No," Taneko agreed, "he is a person to be bartered."

At that, both Yue and Katara shot her incredulous looks.

"You must understand," Taneko said. "This is the closest we have ever come to retrieving our king. We will not hurt the child; but if he is to be kept in good health and given back to his parents, why should he not be kept in good health, given back to his parents, and ensure our king's freedom?"

"Fair enough," Sokka admitted. "I mean, we went in there to take the guy. So, um, now what?"

"We wait," Taneko said. "The governor will make an offer; we need only wait."

.*.*.*.

Katara bent over Yue's arm and worked the last inch of metal free, careful not to pull any harder than she had to.

It did make sense. She knew it did. It was like what she had told Aang, back in Hansing: nobody should have to kill other people—or steal their children and trade them back for captured kings—to stay alive, but they did have to, right now, because of the war. And if she wanted to stop it, she needed King Bumi.

It still left a bad taste in her mouth; but when Yue's arm was cleaned and fixed, Katara let herself turn around, and the kid was sitting on Suki's knee, folding and unfolding one of her fans and giggling happily. They'd keep him for a day or two, at most—and his parents might worry, but that was about the worst that would come of it.

When she looked up, Aang was watching her sympathetically, and he drifted briefly closer, like he'd bump her shoulder if he could only touch it. It was getting dark, which made the blue-tinged shine of him brighter by contrast—that was why Katara didn't see the girl behind him until she leapt through his face.


	8. Omashu, Part 2

Ty Lee tried to land carefully, but people were so unpredictable when they were surprised, and she ended up planting a foot right in the Water Tribe boy's thigh. "Sorry!" she called back over her shoulder, because she was. That had probably hurt.

Azula was two steps ahead of her and not looking back, but Ty Lee could practically hear her roll her eyes. Eye-rolling was better than yelling, though, so Ty Lee was okay with it. She hated it so much when Azula yelled at her. It always made her feel so _small_ inside.

She didn't know how other people could stand it. Azula had yelled for nearly half an hour at the generals in charge of the not-quite-siege, before she had decided they would simply break through the rebel lines themselves; Ty Lee would have been cringing in five minutes.

At least Samnang was there, too. He was smart like Mai, he could get away with interrupting Azula when she was being mean; and he was nice to Ty Lee sometimes even when Azula was angry with her, which was kind of risky. She was so glad Azula had thought to bring him—and now they were going to get Mai, too! This was going to be awesome.

Samnang didn't really do flips; he just ran fast. And Azula was using her bending to carry herself, the soles of her boots flaring with blue flame as she jumped.

They were quick, on their way to the bridge, but they'd lost the element of surprise, and one of the rebels tried to grab Azula's ankle; she clutched his hair in her hand and set it ablaze, and he fell back with a yelp.

Somebody else tried to raise a rock wall in front of them, but Ty Lee saw the ground trembling and hurled herself up, curling and twisting until she could land a foot on the top of it and launch herself off the other side. She loved the circus, and she had promised herself she'd go back once Azula had what she wanted; but she'd missed this. Even tough routines were always planned out, start to finish and every second in between.

She landed perfectly, both feet down without a bounce or a correction, and almost laughed—but they were nearly to the bridge, and once they'd crossed it, there would be plenty of time for that. So she settled for planting a foot on the first great stone of the bridge and throwing herself sideways into a cartwheel, just because she could.

.*.

New Ozai was a lovely city, Ty Lee thought; no wonder Azula's father had decided to name it after himself. If Ty Lee had a city like this she'd name it after herself in a second—or, if New Ty Lee didn't sound so clunky, she would.

The streets of New Ozai were set into the mountain's sides like terraces, winding up toward the peak where the governor's mansion stood. It was after curfew, and guards tried to stop them twice, but Azula flashed the royal seal at them angrily and they backed away. Ty Lee smiled at them, because they were really doing quite a good job; but they were so busy bowing they probably didn't see it.

It was kind of late, so Ty Lee wouldn't have been surprised if they'd had to wait until tomorrow to see Mai. But when they were shown into the governor's mansion, the lanterns were all still lit, and Mai was standing just outside the great hall, closing the door behind herself.

"Mai!" Ty Lee cried, and hurried forward to throw her arms around Mai's shoulders. It really had been too long.

"Ty Lee," Mai said quietly, and for a moment her arms were tight around Ty Lee's back, like clever, cool Mai actually wanted a hug.

Ty Lee was happy to oblige; but then Mai's grip loosened, and Ty Lee reluctantly got out of the way so Mai could bow to Azula.

"Oh, stop," Azula said, waving a hand, and wrapped her own arms briefly around Mai. "It's good to see you." Her voice had softened, and Ty Lee smiled. Azula could be so sweet sometimes.

"It's good to see you, too," Mai said. "And not for the usual reason."

Azula frowned. "Don't tell me this backwater is keeping you occupied," she said.

Mai pursed her lips. "It wasn't, until this evening. You must have seen the resistance out there, on your way in—they took Tom-Tom." She glanced over her shoulder at the door, and grimaced. "My mother won't stop crying."

"You aren't worried about him?" Ty Lee said, a little startled.

"They didn't take him to interrogate him," Mai said flatly. "He's two. They're probably planning to make some kind of a trade—they aren't going to hurt him."

Oh. That made sense.

"They haven't made an offer yet?" Samnang said.

"It was only a couple of hours ago," Mai said dryly. "I'm sure they'll get around to it."

* * *

><p>"Ah, look, fortune smiles on us."<p>

Zuko tore his gaze away from the sea, and looked over his shoulder.

Uncle was behind him—the stupid old man kept his ostrich horse at a frustratingly slow pace. They had been coming south down this stretch of coast for days, and Zuko was heartily sick of it. When his ostrich horse had not been forced to pick its way over rocks, it had been sinking ankle-deep in loose sand; and the breeze brushed almost constantly through his slowly-regrowing hair, reminding him every moment of what he had lost. The sea was a comfort for only one reason: because he could tell himself that if Uncle nagged him about his ostrich horse's treatment or proposed a stop for tea one more time, he could always drown himself to get away.

Uncle was pointing to the side, away from the water and up under the trees, and Zuko nudged his ostrich horse over a little. A path, it looked like—a little earthen path, and the head was marked with a post that bore the triple flame of the Fire Nation.

"Yes, I see, fortune," Zuko said. "We could not have found certain death on our own."

Uncle smiled. "Look a little higher," he said.

Zuko glanced back over the trees—there was a temple tower there, the same one they'd been seeing for the last hour or so as they rode. They were closer now, though, and—he squinted, frowning. He had thought it was a peculiar tree, or perhaps a small cloud's shadow, but the strange darkness against the temple's side was some kind of structure. The temple had cracked around it, like an earthquake had somehow driven a great lumpy ramp of black rock halfway to the shore where they were standing.

_No_, Zuko thought, and his heart was suddenly pounding. Not an earthquake. "The Avatar," he said. "The Avatar has been here."

"And a temple," Uncle said. "Whether its sages have abandoned it or not, we will surely have a shelter for the night, and perhaps even food."

Zuko would not have admitted it aloud, but it was a fair point; it had been far too long since Mi-sun's filling supper, and his stomach was cramping at the mere mention of the word. "Well," he said. "Come on, hurry up," and he began coaxing his ostrich horse up the sloping path.

.*.*.*.

Sen Ya brushed the broom along the edge of the step, flicking the last handful of dirt down. Perhaps she was unduly influenced by having seen the spirit of Avatar Roku with her own two eyes, but things had gone exceptionally well ever since the Avatar had come to them. High Sage Yi had departed in a near-panic to the Crescent Island temple, hoping to confer with the high sage there about what was to be done; and in his absence, bizarrely, Li Fan had come to fill his place.

Sen Ya had hoped things would change, but she still found herself startled by the odd wary deference the aspirants and the other sages now showed the three of them. To be sure, they still were not accepted with open arms; but whatever Li Fan suggested tended to be done, as though the other sages feared that to do otherwise would call Roku back again to rend the temple yet further.

They had not decided what to do about the rocky path the Avatar had built for herself. It was exceptionally difficult to melt stone, and they had no idea whether the temple would still stand if it were removed—aside from part of the wall of the sanctuary antechamber, the lava had filled the crack in the temple's side completely, and had hardened into place with the walls in its grip.

They had settled for a temporary cover of wood to keep rain out of the antechamber, and had let it be otherwise. And it was certainly impressive, to have proof in solid stone that the Avatar had come to them, even if it did mean Sen Ya had to sweep each half of the remaining front stairs separately.

She circled back inside to reach the other half—the only other way was to walk the entire length of the Avatar's path—and was coming back out into the sunlight when she realized there were people coming toward her.

Two, on ostrich horses; clothed in green, but they did not seem afraid, though Sen Ya could not think how word might have spread that Li Fan would turn no one away.

One was moving faster than the other—the younger of the two men, and he reined his ostrich horse in only feet from the lowest step. "The Avatar was here," he said.

Ah—a pilgrim. Sen Ya bowed. "She was, yes," she said.

"But she is gone now?" he said. Sen Ya wanted to call his tone wistful, but it was a little too sharp for that.

"She is," Sen Ya said regretfully. "Although she kindly left us a token, so that we would not forget." From here, the Avatar's path was a wall beside them, impossible to ignore.

The young man glanced up at the path—nearly four full floors high, here—and for a second, he looked nearly reverent; but then he shook his head, and turned back to Sen Ya. "And you—what, you sheltered her here?"

Sen Ya blinked. A belligerent pilgrim. Perhaps it was the young man's nature; the older man had caught up, now, guiding his ostrich horse closer, and he was making an apologetic face at Sen Ya. "She came to us for aid. Some of us would have turned her away, but duty prevailed."

The young man snorted. "And she tore the temple in half to thank you," he said.

"Duty had a somewhat difficult time prevailing," Sen Ya amended. "She touched the spirit of Roku, and he built the path so that she could depart." And if there were any argument needed that they had been right to help her, that had been it. All were taught that Roku had been a powerful and dedicated Avatar; he would not have come forth to help the girl if she should not have been helped.

The younger pilgrim had evidently come to the same conclusion: he was gaping at Sen Ya like a beached fish.

"Nephew," said the older man, before the younger's startlement could wear off. "I am a tired old man, and we have come a long way—we should rest here. If that's all right," and this last was directed to Sen Ya.

"Our high sage is away," Sen Ya said, "but I think we can muster two additional plates."

* * *

><p>"I apologize, Princess; we should have been better prepared. But you have come to New Ozai at a difficult time—"<p>

"Yes, yes," Azula said, in the tone that meant she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes.

Really, Ty Lee thought, Azula was actually being pretty restrained; she hadn't demanded that Mai's parents attend her last night, which she would have been well within her rights to do. And she had given them an entire night and half the morning to compose themselves, which was generous for Azula.

"The resistance is willing to deal with us," the governor added anxiously, still prostrating himself on the cushion in front of Azula—he had known better to object when Azula had come in and seated herself in the chair on the dais. "We will make the trade—all this will be resolved—"

"Mai will make the trade," Azula snapped, and Ty Lee winced a little. Obviously Azula's patience was starting to run out. "My father trusted you with the governance of this city, but your conduct thus far has been less than impressive. Who knows what might happen if you were given charge of an operation so delicate."

"But—it will be made?" Mai's mother said unexpectedly. "Our—our son will be returned to us?"

Ty Lee was looking at Azula, but Mai wasn't standing all that far away, and it was easy for Ty Lee to see the way her face, already so still, shuttered even further.

"Yes," Azula said. "At noon, you told them? We'll be ready. Now, where have you imprisoned this king of theirs?"

.*.*.*.

"Hey," Sokka said, "that's the girl who stepped on me."

Yue glanced up. They had pried the child away from Suki's fans, but only by replacing them with one of Yue's braids. He was rather heavy, and it was a bit difficult to hold him and her pike at the same time, but she was managing.

They were in the middle of crossing the bridge; the city gates had creaked open only a few moments ago, and there were at least four people waiting for them inside. The girl on the far left with the long braid did look familiar—and she shot Sokka a vaguely guilty look as they drew closer.

"That's close enough," one of the girls said, sharp and commanding, as soon as they were inside the gate. She wasn't smiling, but there was something about the slant of her mouth that spoke of smugness, of satisfaction.

"My brother is unhurt?" said the third girl, and Yue was surprised to hear her say _brother_—by the sound of her voice, she might just as easily have been commenting on the weather.

"He is," Yue assured her anyway, because who knew; some people hid their worry deep. She hefted the boy a little higher against her hip, and he giggled and bumped her shoulder with his head. "We took fine care of him."

And, sure enough, some small stiffness somewhere in the bored girl's shoulders went away. She looked like she might have been about to say something else, but the sharp girl spoke first. "The same can be said about your king," and she motioned behind her.

There was another gate there, leading to the next highest level of the city; but there were soldiers on the walltop, and at the movement of the sharp girl's hand, they were spurred into action. There was something on the parapet, vaguely boxy, and it had a metallic sort of gleam in the sun—of course, Yue thought, of _course_, where else could they keep an Earthbender king in a city of stone?

They lowered the king's tiny prison with chains until it hung from the gate in midair, the king's feet about the same distance from the ground as the sharp girl's head; and they got their first look at the king's face through the gaps between metal bars.

He did not look quite the way Yue had been expecting. Not that she had any particular expectations for Earth kings—but his hair stood out from the sides of his head rather wildly, and he had a very peculiar laugh.

Taneko had come with them; she stood behind Katara, and when Yue glanced at her, she looked not at all disconcerted. Apparently King Bumi was like this all the time. "My lord," she said, only a little wry, and bowed.

"Taneko?" the king said. "Is that you?" He shook his head, sighing. "I told you—"

"An opportunity arose," Taneko said.

"Enough babble," said the sharp girl. "Here is your king—well enough to speak, and with the use of all his limbs." She turned to look at him, almost consideringly, and something about the motion put Yue on edge—it was too smooth, as though rehearsed. "A powerful Earthbender, traded for an infant. It doesn't seem quite fair."

The bored girl went still, though her expression didn't change a jot; and the girl with the long braid said, "Azula—"

"Does it?" Azula demanded.

"No," the bored girl said, "you're right; I suppose it doesn't."

"Wait a minute," Sokka said, and he sounded more startled than angry. "Doesn't this kid's life mean a thing to _any_ of you?"

The sharp girl laughed. "That you would think to ask that question seems like fair evidence that you don't plan to harm him yourselves—where is the risk?" She shrugged gracefully. "We keep the king, and sleep easy knowing you'll hold onto the boy. Even if you wished to kill him, it would be foolish: we might change our minds tomorrow, and return with another trade to propose."

"But you won't, will you?" Katara said quietly.

The sharp girl grinned. "We might."

She waved over her shoulder again, without even looking, and the soldiers on the top of the wall began obediently hauling King Bumi back up.

"You see?" he said to Taneko through the bars, sounding not the least bit upset; and then he turned in Katara's direction, and said, "It was nice to see you again, old friend."

"Wait, what do you—" Katara began, her voice beginning to trail into a question, and she took a step forward.

"She seeks to free the king!" the sharp girl said. "Stop them!"

.*.*.*.

Sokka didn't know the guy personally, but he didn't really like Ozai much; in retrospect, probably they shouldn't have sauntered inside a city that was named after him. Things had been bound to go wrong.

"Hold him," Yue said, hefting the kid toward him. "I cannot fight if I cannot use both hands."

"Now wait just one second," Sokka said, but Yue was already turning away from him, swinging her pike around low and fast.

The girl with the long braid leapt over the haft like she was playing a kid's game, with a smile on her face, and then did a little extra flip like she was taunting them. Beyond her, the governor's daughter, the girl with all the knives, was hurling them at Suki and Taneko. Taneko raised a wall of rock in front of herself, and the blades clanged off. Suki knocked one out of the air with the side of a fan and then charged forward, only to be met by the glaive of the only boy.

And Katara—Katara wasn't still where she had been standing. She had already uncapped her bending water, and frozen the chains holding up the king, so fast the metal had cracked with the cold; but the angry girl with the snooty voice—Azula?—was apparently a Firebender, and Katara was under the gate now, dodging balls of flame or meeting them with blobs of water.

"No one ever understands," the king said over the noise. Sokka couldn't be totally sure, but he sounded more vaguely resigned than anything else. The chains above him creaked, and the two largest broke; the little box-coffin-prison thing swung lower for a second, and then the rest of the chains snapped all at once with a screech.

"Um, Katara," Sokka yelled, starting forward with the kid still in his arms; but King Bumi jerked his chin as he fell, and the earth rose up to catch him. "... Okay, _that_ is a master Earthbender."

"I need a moment," King Bumi declared, and swung his head again: the rock lifted him and swung him to the side, and Katara skidded away with him, eyes startled. "Sorry!" King Bumi called back to the angry girl, who was left standing there as they were carried off down the street beyond the gate.

Okay, so he seemed like kind of a weirdo, but King Bumi definitely had style.

.*.*.*.

Bumi slowed them down not far away, and then raised the ground up into a pillar with a jerk of his head; Katara could see Azula, small with distance, beginning to head toward them, but Taneko threw a chunk of stone at the girl's head and she turned back around.

"What were you talking about?" she said, as soon as the rock beneath them stopped moving.

"You're the Avatar," King Bumi said, "aren't you?"

"I—yes." Katara blinked. "How did you know?"

"Magic," King Bumi said, and then burst out laughing at the look on her face. "Kidding, kidding—logic. Taneko was one of my personal guards, before Omashu was taken, and she knew better than to try to come for me unless something exceptional made her think it was a good idea; you Waterbend. So: Avatar, which means some part of you used to be one of my best friends."

Katara stared at him, hopelessly lost; but Aang was drifting closer beside her, squinting. "Wait, _Bumi_?" he said.

Katara threw caution to the wind—if King Bumi thought she was odd, well, then they'd be even. "Yeah," she said, "right; he's the king, remember?"

"Oho," King Bumi said, pleased, "he's right there, is he?"

Katara glanced at Aang. "You knew Aang?" she said slowly.

"Oh, yes," King Bumi said, "when I was a child! I wasn't especially princelike, at the time, and we got into quite a bit of trouble." He grinned.

"I don't believe it," Aang said faintly. "I thought—I thought it had to be a different person, the next king, with the same name. But he's—he's really alive." There was a sort of light—metaphorical, rather than blue and shiny—blooming somehow in his face, and Katara smiled to see it; Aang had been so convinced everything he'd ever known was dead and gone. It had to be pleasant to be proven wrong.

"Good to not see you," King Bumi said, almost fondly. "Now, Avatar, we have some matters to discuss. You are, no doubt, wondering why I'm still in this box when I can Earthbend with my face."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Katara said. "You said Taneko knew—knew better than to try to come for you? I don't understand—it could have worked. Even without the trade, we can free you now; you can lead your people, I can have someone who can teach me Earthbending—"

"Nope," Bumi said, shaking his head. "Wrong, wrong, wrong. You're the Avatar, but you still think like a Waterbender—always change, always movement. Like your jing."

"Positive to negative," Katara said, "back and forth." Reciting her lessons from Yue to an Earthbender king standing in a metal coffin; this conversation was getting deeply surreal.

Bumi nodded. "Exactly so," he said. "But the jing that governs Earthbending is neither."

"... Neutral?" Katara guessed. Yue had told her there were actually eighty-five kinds, but they'd only talked about the fundamentals.

"Precisely!" Bumi said. "Waiting, listening; feeling the stillness of the moment that will tell you when to move. And this, right now—this is not my moment. This is not the time."

"But—I need a teacher," Katara said helplessly.

Bumi smiled. "And you will have one—when the moment is right," he said. "You'll find someone who listens to the earth, and can teach you to do the same. Perhaps it will even be me—but not today. You see?"

Katara sighed. "Not exactly," she admitted, "but I can't make you teach me." And perhaps he was right—Aang had said it, even one of those fire sages had said it. There was an order to these things, and she hadn't finished mastering Waterbending yet. Maybe it really wasn't the right time.

Bumi was watching her, and he nodded, then, like the conclusion she had just come to was inked in the air over her head. "The best of luck to you, Avatar," he said, and Katara bowed just as the rock beneath them began to lower them back to earth.

.*.*.*.

Taneko punched upward, and the ground splintered up to follow her fist just in time to save Sokka—and the child—from being fried alive.

She had recognized Princess Azula the moment the girl's face had been close enough to see, and had cursed inwardly. Bumi was her king, and she respected him deeply; but all his talk of waiting for the moment could grow deeply tiresome. She hated it when he was right.

The princess wasted no time with anger, and simply brought her hands to bear again, throwing a whirling disc of fire. It was not hard for Taneko to duck under, and she did not realize why until she had straightened up again.

It had been a distraction, and Princess Azula had used the time to leap over the wall Taneko had raised and set her hand to Sokka's throat. He had taken more care for the boy in his arms than for himself; he could have drawn the sword at his waist, but he would have had to drop the child to do it quickly enough.

"Sokka!" someone cried—Yue, the white-haired girl, the closest to them. There was something wrong with one of her arms, but the other was still working, and she had hurled the girl with the braid away from herself with a rope of water.

"Give him to me," Princess Azula hissed.

"What, so you can fry him instead of my neck?" Sokka said, clutching the kid protectively against his chest. "I don't think so."

Princess Azula stilled, and stared at him for a long moment. "I won't hurt him," she said. "He's my best friend's little brother." She paused again, and drew her hand slowly away from Sokka's throat. "Give him to me," she said, and this time it almost sounded like a request.

Sokka looked at her, and then Taneko saw his eyes flick over to the gate, where even now his sister was sprinting back down the street.

"Do it," Yue said suddenly. "There won't be any trade now—do it."

"This is totally a bad idea," Sokka muttered, but he held the child out; and Princess Azula took him.

* * *

><p>"Beautiful, aren't they."<p>

It was Uncle; Zuko knew it before he even turned his head. Even if the voice hadn't given it away, only Uncle would say something so graciously inane.

"There used to be more," Uncle said, running a finger lightly over one of the mosaics.

Zuko glanced along the hall. It was at the rear of the temple, a long corridor. Zuko had been itching to depart again, but Uncle had instantly accepted Sen Ya's offer of supper and a place to sleep, and had been slow to get moving this morning; in a desperate effort to distract himself, Zuko had decided to take a look around the temple.

And it had worked: he'd gotten embarrassingly absorbed in the mosaics, though not enough that he was unable to tell there were no gaps.

"In the other temples," Uncle clarified. "Did you ever go to the Avatar temple in Da Su-Lien?"

Zuko shook his head.

"You can see it, there—where they took the other Avatars off the walls." Uncle lifted his fingers from the stones and stepped back. "Sozin ordered that all Avatars who were not from the Fire Nation be removed."

"A wise choice," Zuko said, because Uncle seemed to be waiting for him to speak. "War is a foolish time to honor your enemies. Surely only the Avatars whose lives serve as a true example for the people—"

Uncle coughed loudly, the sound tinged with the edge of a laugh. "Tell me," he said, "what do you know about the Fire Nation Avatars of the past?"

Zuko glanced up at the mosaic they were standing in front of. "Kunnarya," he said, brushing the stones with one hand.

"Yes," Uncle agreed.

Zuko thought back to his lessons. "From the eastern islands," he said, "but she knew her duty was to serve the Fire Nation as a whole, and she did not falter."

"Very true," Uncle said equably, "but I think perhaps her definition of duty to the Fire Nation was different from the one your tutors imparted to you. She loved the eastern islands well. Were you also taught that she was given a hand in their governance?"

Zuko blinked.

Uncle nodded. "Fire Lady Zunli was very generous with her. Eight of the island governors were from the islands, in Kunnarya's time."

Uncle did not have to say it, Zuko knew: the same was true of only one official Zuko could think of now. "We are all part of the Fire Nation," Zuko said. "It does not matter."

"Having a voice in such things always matters," Uncle said quietly, and then turned to Zuko and smiled faintly. "But I believe you were saying earlier that you were ready to depart?"

"Yes," Zuko said, and lifted his hand from the little tiles that marked the hem of Kunnarya's skirt. Past Avatars, he reminded himself, were not their concern today.

* * *

><p>Yin put her arms around Bopha's shoulders and squeezed. "I'll be back again," she said.<p>

"Yeah, of course, in another six years," Phirun said, rolling his eyes; but he let her muss his hair again.

Mother drew Yin close and kissed her cheek, nudging a little stray hair behind Yin's ear. "I would wish you good luck, my daughter," she said, "but I know you do not need it."

Yin had already saddled Kiri, so she only had to mount up and she was ready to go. There was no one there but her family, so she let herself look back over her shoulder as many times as she liked, until the road curved away and dipped down and they were lost from view behind the trees.

She sighed, then, and drew Kiri up for a moment. She was next to the big old tree, and she reached out and rested her hand on the bark.

She had been hoping, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it would all end with Zhao. She had done things she had never expected to do, turned on her commanding officer for the sake of the Avatar; but he was gone now, and the Avatar was safe in the north. She had thought everything would finally be the way it should be, now. She would keep her fleet and be put under the command of someone competent, and follow orders for the rest of her life with a clear conscience.

But Bopha's bitter voice, Mother's hands curled over the dishwater; these things said otherwise. She had not been able to avoid the thought, last night—what Mother had said had skirted the edge of sedition, but Yin would never have turned her in. The Avatar was no relation of hers, and Yin had not been able to let _her_ be turned in; and that had led Yin to the least comfortable thought of all.

The obsession, the madness, the plot to slay the moon—these things had all been Zhao. But even if he had not gone about it wisely, the quest to take the Avatar had not been, not really. The same orders Zhao had taken it upon himself to fulfill would probably have come down to them through the proper channels, in time. And much as Yin might tell herself she had only been thwarting Zhao's foolishness, she had done it by saving the Avatar. If everything happened as she hoped—she did keep her fleet, she was given a competent commander, she had orders that it did not make her cringe to follow—would she then forget everything that had happened, and hand the Avatar over without the slightest pang?

She had not been able to find an answer, last night; but now, eyes closed, feeling the old familiar bark beneath her fingers, she suddenly feared that it was a resounding no.

* * *

><p>"I apologize," Taneko said, bowing. "My king told me he would not come until the right moment, and I should have listened."<p>

"No, hey, it's okay," Sokka said. "He seemed a little kooky, I can see how it would be hard to take him seriously."

Suki bit down on a laugh. It was true, every bit: perhaps it hadn't gone the way they'd been planning, but no one had been hurt so badly Katara hadn't been able to fix it. Even the odd limpness in Yue's arm that the girl with the braid had left behind was slowly wearing off. And the Omashu resistance was no worse off than it had been before, if also no better. Plus, King Bumi had been kind of peculiar.

Taneko withheld comment. "I wish you good fortune on your travels," she said instead. "And, if I may make a suggestion?"

"Of course," Katara said, and Suki could hear the gratitude that colored her voice. She had told them everything King Bumi had said, about waiting for the right moment and finding someone who listened; but the end-of-summer deadline was still hanging over her head. It was _Katara_, of course she was still worried.

"Gaoling," Taneko said. "It is some distance to the south, near the mountains. It is a great center of Earthbending power—there are at least three schools in the city itself, and many fine Earthbenders go there, to train and to teach. I feel confident in saying none of them will be quite like our king; but I am sure you will be able to find someone there."

* * *

><p>Azula watched Mai's mother clutch Tom-Tom and cry, and tried not to sigh.<p>

She had been too honest, again, but it had paid off; the boy and the girl had believed her, and given her Tom-Tom. Granted, they had also escaped, when they should have been killed for their feeble attempt to cheat the deal, but on balance, it had gone well.

Very well, in fact—she had gotten the boy, which meant she was the one who had handed him back to Mai. Mai was rarely demonstrative, but she had smoothed Tom-Tom's hair with distinctly gentle hands and given Azula a small grateful smile.

Azula had not brought up her search for Zuko and Uncle yet; but she would, as soon as this woman was done crying and she could get Mai alone, and it was a foregone conclusion.

Azula had given Mai her little brother back. Mai would agree.


	9. The Swamp, Part 1

Thank you to everybody who's reviewed/followed/faved this story so far; I appreciate your feedback and interest more than I can say! Updating a little early today because I won't have time later. I'll probably be a bit too busy to update on Christmas Eve, so the next update won't come until **Friday**, **12/26**. Happy holidays of every kind to everyone who's celebrating at this time of year! Hope you all enjoy the chapter. :)

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><p>.*.<p>

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><p><strong>Chapter 5: The Swamp<strong>

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><p>.*.<p>

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><p>They had sailed many corners of the ocean, in four years' time, but they had never had reason to go near Dou Ying Island, and it was not marked on any of Mizan's charts. So she didn't mind staying in the middle of their fleet, completely surrounded; she hated sailing anywhere if she didn't know the depth of the water. This way they'd at least have some warning if there were sudden shoals.<p>

She found it less pleasant when they reached the harbor; though it had been obvious from the start that they would not be able to go if they wished to, something about being surrounded within the enclosing arms of the harbor made it suddenly even more true.

"They're signaling," Isani said. "They want us to dock at the left, there, I think."

"I think you're right," Mizan said, and forced herself to concentrate. She could compose all the drastic escape plans she wanted later, when they'd be truly needed. Right now, they had to do as they were told if they wanted to live.

.*.

Mizan couldn't have said what she'd been expecting, but it had been something more piratical than a well-kept old village hall on the main road up from the harbor. Perhaps "village" was not precisely the right word: there were more buildings than Mizan could count easily, with wide streets between them, men hurrying by with baskets and women with fabric piled on their shoulders. The pirates had their own little city here—dedicated, no doubt, to keeping the fleet in good repair and the pirates fed, and supported by trade in the loot the pirates took.

"This way," the captain said sharply over his shoulder, when Mizan slowed for a moment to look, and the sailor next to her took her elbow roughly.

On her other side, Isani made a sharp movement, as though to begin a punch; but Mizan caught her wrist before she could get far. She was willing to accept a little bruising to her elbow as the price for a way to do what she needed to do.

There was a table in the hall, large and solidly built, and at least eight people were sitting at it—captains, Mizan assumed, or commanders, or whatever pirates had. There were others inside, a whole crowd; and they went quiet as the captain approached the table, Mizan and Isani behind him.

"What is this?" said one of the women behind the table.

"The Fire Nation captain," the captain said.

"Ah, yes," said a man near the end, nodding. "You sent word." His gaze shifted to Mizan, and he eyed her critically. "I would ask who you are, to think you could sail up to an enemy fleet and request to join them, but there is no need."

"No?" Mizan said.

Another woman snorted. "Everything there is to know about you is shouted out by your ship. Fire Nation—arrogant, presumptuous, violent."

"Violent," Mizan repeated consideringly. "I have never been called violent by pirates before."

The woman rolled her eyes. "You see? Pirates, she says," she said to the man.

"If not pirates, then what are you called?" Mizan said.

The man smiled at her, but it was not a pleasant expression. "It does not matter," he said. "We are now called many things. Pirates, raiders, privateers. What matters is what we were called before." He tapped a finger against the table. "Fishermen, farmers; shepherds, weavers. Until those lives were taken from us by such as you."

Mizan crossed her arms. "My ship seems to have forgotten to tell you a few things," she said. "Were I to sail up to a Fire Nation fleet, I would be as welcome as you. I am a criminal; if what I heard in the last port we docked in was true, Princess Azula has set a price on my head herself."

"A different sort of criminal than us," the first woman said, "if Princess Azula dealt with your sentence personally."

Fair enough. "It is true that I am not a thief by trade," Mizan acknowledged. "But I am a soldier and a sailor, as is every member of my crew; and I bring with me a Fire Navy steamship. Not one of the great battleships, but in good condition and well-armed, and certainly superior to any Earth Kingdom barge."

"Such a respectful choice of words," the second woman murmured, eyes hard.

"Respectfulness and truth are sometimes at odds," Mizan said. "When there is a choice, I choose truth." She raised her voice a little, enough that everyone in the hall would be able to hear. "I was in the Navy for many years before my exile—I know their ways, I know their ships, I know their favored routes. I can help you, if you will allow it, and we will be a thorn in their side so deep they will never pry it out."

All eight of them were looking at her, now—nine, if you counted the captain who was still standing beside her—and most of them had expressions that were at least thoughtful, if not friendly. But she had them now; she understood what she had not at first.

"Because that's what you're doing, isn't it?" she said. "They call you pirates because that's what you are to them—but only to them. If you were true pirates, you'd have no allegiance at all; but you've never sunk an Earth Kingdom ship in your lives. Or however long it's been since one village too many burst into flames and you decided to take matters into your own hands."

The eight who were sitting at the table exchanged glances.

"You cannot be trusted to sail alone," a third woman said, one who hadn't spoken before. "Or with your full crew intact."

"Of course not," Mizan said, frowning a little. Did they think she was a complete fool? "I had thought to split them up—a Firebender per ship will make it far easier for your fleets to coordinate themselves."

There was quiet for a moment; and then the captain who had brought her in laughed aloud. "Well," he said, "perhaps we will find some use for you after all."

* * *

><p>Yue stared up at the trees and sighed.<p>

She had come to like trees quite well, on their journey south; but they had traveled at a blistering pace compared to the Avatar's journey north, and everything was different here. It was unbelievably hot, all the time, and the sun was always so high—and the trees had gone from reasonably-sized to, well, this.

"Can't we—go around?" Sokka said plaintively.

"I'm not looking forward to this, either," Suki said, "but we need to get to Gaoling as fast as we can, and we have no idea how big this swamp is. There's no way going around will be faster than going straight through."

"It'll be faster if it means we don't sink up to our necks in swamp scum," Sokka said. "We're not even in it yet, and the ground's all squishy and gross. And look at those trees! They could step on us without even noticing!"

"Except for how they're trees and not stepping anywhere, I'm sure you're right," Katara said dryly. "We've got two Waterbenders, Sokka. The swamp scum isn't going to get us."

"Maybe it wouldn't have if you hadn't said that right in front of it," Sokka muttered.

At that, Yue couldn't help smiling, and she reached out to put a hand on Sokka's shoulder. "Do not worry: I will protect you," she said, hefting her pike in her other hand.

To be fair, it certainly was intimidating: what gaps there were between the giant trees were filled with thick damp shadows, or hanging vines, and there was a faint murky burbling coming from somewhere. Sokka stared at it a moment longer, expression resigned, and then glanced at her, and Suki behind her, and Katara on the other side. "Okay, fine," he said, "but if I end up with scum living in my boots, I blame you all."

"We'll do our best to bear it," Suki said, laughing, and pushed the first curtain of vines aside.

.*.*.*.

Probably they were all going to end up with scum living in their boots, Suki thought later, rubbing a stray hair out of her face with one wrist. Not that they had to step in the swamp all that much—nothing could be done about the sogginess of the ground, but Katara and Yue could freeze paths to get them across the larger pools of stagnant water. But Suki, at least, was sweating ferociously. The air seemed to get hotter and stickier the further they went, and there were bugs everywhere.

"That beetle was the _size_ of my _fist_," she heard Sokka muttering. "Not okay!"

She nearly laughed, but she was abruptly too busy falling—everything in here was so _slippery_, when it wasn't sticky or grimy.

She caught herself on one hand; the texture of the root she'd grabbed was truly disgusting, but she forced herself not to let go. Yue had caught her other elbow, and a second later Sokka came up behind her and steadied her shoulders.

"All right, that's it," Suki heard Katara say, and when she was steady on her feet again and looking up, she saw Katara shake her head. "When Suki's falling down, it's time to stop."

Suki thought about protesting, but it actually was getting dark—or darker than it had been before, at least, even under the dank green shade of the trees.

They had been in uncomfortable surroundings before, but that evening was truly miserable. Breathing felt like drowning, and the wood around them was so wet they couldn't start a fire. Suki could think of nothing that would have comforted her more than a warm bowl of rice, but they had to settle for dried meat—tougher than usual, with the damp in the air—and raw vegetables that had lost most of their crunch in the heat.

"We probably shouldn't start a fire anyway," Katara said, glancing up at the trees. "It would just make everything hotter—and who knows what's in here that might come looking."

Sokka was not convinced. "I bet we could've started one if we'd tried," he said, "by which I mean if you'd just let me cut some branches—"

"It was a bad idea!" Katara said.

Sokka rolled his eyes. "They're just _trees_, they wouldn't have cared! You are so _weird_, seriously."

Katara bit her lip and glanced at the air; Aang, of course, but it made Sokka roll his eyes again.

"Could've started it yourself if you could Firebend," he added sharply, and Suki thought about punching him.

"A very practical point to make," Yue said before Suki could move, her voice cool and biting, "given that she's had no way to learn it yet."

"Yeah, well," Sokka said grumpily; but he let it go.

Once it had begun, the dark came on quickly, and pale, eerie lights began to spring up between the trees, distant and vague through the mist. They set up their sleeping mats facing away from each other—and it was a good idea, Suki told herself, because they needed to keep an eye out in here; she firmly ignored the bit of her that was just plain sick of their faces, sick of always walking, and sick of this place.

.*.

She slept badly, waking half a dozen times in the night with the firm conviction that something was slithering over her ankles or up the side of her arm, only to find nothing there at all. The dim light of morning filtering down through the leaves was a relief, even if the feeling was muted by sheer exhaustion; the sooner they could keep going, the sooner they could get out of here.

So the groaning noises, when they first started, seemed like just another way for the swamp to prove itself unpleasant—after the heat, and the damp, and the bugs, and the lights in the dark, why not?

But it wasn't just trees bending in the wind, or something in the distance fighting, because it seemed to be following them. The fourth time they heard it, it was close and almost right ahead of them, and Sokka nearly jumped out of his boots.

"Okay, seriously," he said, "what is that?" and he was turning to make a face at Suki when his question was abruptly answered.

The thing was huge, at least several dozen feet tall, and its motions as it came toward them were absurdly smooth—it looked effortless, limbs slithering forward through the water like it was _growing_ at them instead of walking. Well, limbs—limbs might have been the wrong word. It reminded Suki suddenly of La, and the way the great fishlike spirit had flowed over the palace wall in Kanjusuk, like it was no barrier at all; but this spirit, if that was what it was, had no pool of light at its heart. It had a face, though, oddly expressionless, and very still amidst the shifting greenness that made up its body.

Sokka must have seen the look on Suki's face as she stared at it over his shoulder, because he raised his eyebrows and turned back around.

"That's ... not actually much of an answer to my question," he said, almost thoughtfully; and then his feet went out from under him and he tumbled into the water with a cry.

A terrible moment to slip, Suki thought, and then realized that he hadn't—or he had, but it had been because of the thick black vine that had looped around his waist and tugged him sideways. The plant-spirit groaned again, so loud the water around them trembled visibly; Suki had never heard of a creature that could attack people by making plants grow, but given that she had just traveled across the world to a city made of ice with the Avatar, she was willing to consider it.

First things first. The creature was still not all that close, but it was apparently powerful; Yue was wrestling with another vine that was trying to yank her pike from her hands, and Katara had sliced another in two with a foaming blade of water. And Sokka was sputtering in the swampy water, sliding steadily closer to the monster despite the kicking of his feet.

Suki gave herself a small running start, three quick steps along the root mass they'd camped on, and then threw herself into the air, tucking her legs up tight. A turn, two, and then she snapped her legs out again in time to land with a splash between Sokka and the creature.

She didn't land on the vine, but it had to be close; she slung a fan open and swung it down to cut through the water like the blade of a paddle. It came up with a spattering of mud against the nearest tree, but she must have managed to slice the right thing, because the tension that had been dragging Sokka abruptly dropped away, and he hurtled to his feet and yanked the vine off himself with a shout.

The creature shrieked, like Suki chopping a vine thirty feet away had somehow managed to hurt it, and raised both of its loosely-arranged arms. The swamp water answered, heaving up in a wave; and when Katara hurried toward them, reaching up to catch it, two more vines whipped up out of the water and twined around her arms. Half the wave crumpled down, but half didn't, and Suki dodged to the side to avoid what was left.

It brought her closer to the mud-spattered tree—too close, she realized a moment later, as the creature shifted its arms and a dozen vines tumbled down from the branches. She cut through three with one swing, a fourth on the way back, but there were too many; Sokka shouted something that she couldn't quite hear over the splash of water and another of the creature's groans, and then the vines dragged her back, away from the clearing and off into the mist.

.*.*.*.

Katara heard Sokka yell, and she had some idea what had happened when she looked over her shoulder and couldn't see Suki; but she was a little occupied with the vines that were gripping her arms. They'd wound themselves as tightly as hands, tight enough to bruise, and her sleeves were heavy with the water that streamed off them.

It was creepy, how alive they seemed. Not that plants were usually dead, but in Katara's experience—which, admittedly, was relatively limited—they didn't often attack unprovoked. But it had to be the swamp-monster controlling them. The only problem was, she couldn't tell how. Some kind of spirit ability, she might have thought, except nothing was blue or glowing aside from Aang's horrified face.

She couldn't shake the vines off herself, and, of course, Aang couldn't touch them, though he did try. She couldn't even bend, with the way they were pulling her arms taut. But Yue had let go of her pike, giving herself a few free seconds while the vines that had been after her wrapped themselves around the weapon, and she used the time to turn and cut Katara free with a sharp swing of her hands.

Sokka had managed to slide his sword free, and he was swinging wildly, slicing the vines in front of him apart before they could touch him—but there were more creeping up from behind as the swamp-thing lumbered closer. Aang shouted a warning, and Katara had to turn away to slap more vines down with a handful of water; when she turned back, Sokka was nowhere to be seen, and the sound of his startled yelp was already fading away.

It was so quick—she shouted after him, and then turned back around, about to ask Yue whether she had seen anything; but Yue gasped while Katara's head was still turning, and when Katara had finished moving, the only thing left was the water rippling where Yue had been standing.

"Aang," Katara said, gasping—she'd barely moved, but her breath was short, her lungs suddenly too small. "Aang, did you see—?"

"The vines," Aang said, "they dragged her that way," and then the swamp-thing growled again, long and low. Katara whirled, abruptly angry, and sent a tall, thin sheet of water flying at it. It moved, but not fast enough, and a third of one arm fell away; but somehow, she couldn't see how, it was replaced just as quickly.

It shrieked again, sharp and angry, and then sank back suddenly toward the trees.

"Katara—Katara, hurry," Aang said, but it was already too late; even as she stepped out into the water and began pulling it close to carry her, the green of the swamp-monster blended back into the heavy mist, and she was left alone but for Aang, hovering at her shoulder.

Katara swallowed down the urge to shout angrily at the trees, and let her arms drop. No point—the thing was gone, and she wanted to find Sokka and Suki and Yue more than she wanted to chase it down by herself.

She swallowed. With the swamp-thing gone, it was almost eerily quiet.

But Aang was still there. "I can find them," he said quickly, "I can help you find them," and he was wringing his hands anxiously.

Someday, Katara thought, she was going to find a way to convince him that being incorporeal was a really good reason to not be able to help them when this kind of thing happened. "Yue," she said. "You saw which way she went?"

Aang nodded, and turned to point—and he must have seen the pale flash amid the trees at the same moment as Katara, because they both twitched forward. Yue's hair—it had to be. "Yue!" Katara shouted, in case the other girl could hear her, and she hurried forward into the swamp.

.*.*.*.

The vines had Yue around the ankles, and three more were wrapped diagonally around her chest and shoulder; but apparently they only really had one good yank in them, because once she had skidded off through the water and bounced over two roots and into a third, they went limp and slid away.

She shoved them off herself immediately, just in case the swamp creature chose to follow her and bring them back to life, and then stood up, grimacing as the motion flexed what would undoubtedly become a spectacular bruise across her back.

She had felt disgusting before, sweating through her shirt with her hair sticking slickly to the back of her neck; but she was truly vile now, soaked as she was with stagnant water. She climbed out onto the root she'd struck, and dumped the worst of it out of her boots. She couldn't get rid of the tepid, sour smell, but she could bend most of the water out of her clothes and hair, and did, with a careful twist of her hands. And then she stood up, and tried to figure out where she was.

The vines hadn't tugged her back in a straight line, and they hadn't been careful to keep her head above water either. But surely they couldn't have managed to take her very far.

The sun was no help; mist had risen up everywhere, perhaps in response to the swamp creature's presence. She was peering into it carefully, trying to decide whether that stump actually looked familiar, when the heel of a boot disappeared around a tree trunk, and someone giggled.

Not Katara or Suki, Yue was fairly certain; they had been as annoyed this morning as anyone, and Yue doubted either one would wander through the swamp giggling. But it was _someone_, and someone was better than no one.

She drew the water close under her feet, pressing it into a little platform of ice, and then pulled on the water around it, skimming forward across the pool. Yes, there, a hand—and a flash of red?

Yue thought of the acrobatic girl immediately, the one who had taken her bending away; and she shuddered a little. It had been so _unsettling_—she had been halfway through a move, water following her hands like always. The girl had slipped past and pressed two fingers into her shoulder, and suddenly the water had splattered to the ground, and she hadn't been able to lift it again no matter what she did. Disconcerting.

But she shoved her nervousness back and sped up, and soon she could see that she had been wrong. It wasn't the acrobatic girl—it was Princess Azula.

Taneko had told them a little, before they had left Omashu to head to the south: they had been facing the crown princess of the Fire Nation, the younger sister of the exiled prince who had plagued Katara, Sokka, and Suki on their way north. Sokka had muttered something about how everybody related to the Fire Lord was evidently just as unpleasant as he was.

Yue slowed. The girl who had taken her bending away, unnerving as she'd been, had smiled the whole time; she hadn't seemed angry or especially violent, and she hadn't actually hurt Yue very much. But the princess—Yue couldn't forget the look on her face when she'd pressed her hand to Sokka's throat. Had she truly followed them all the way into the swamp from Omashu?

Azula saw the look on her face and giggled again, sounding pleasantly delighted. "You don't look happy to see me," she said, fondly scolding, like Yue was a friend.

"Perhaps because I am not," Yue said. She stayed wary, but Azula hadn't moved, except to shift her weight, and her arms were folded across her chest; it would take her some time to reach a bending stance.

"Oh, now that's just impolite," Azula said. "I need the Avatar, you must understand that; but you could live, if you wanted."

"If you get your hands on Katara," Yue said, "it will be because I am already dead."

Azula tilted her head back and laughed. "That is so cute," she said, lifting one hand, and Yue almost threw a wall of water at her reflexively—but she was only wiping theatrically at one eye. "I mean, you aren't even one of them, not really. They've been across the world together—and you? You've taught her some tricks and helped them sail their boat. Good thing you almost died the first time, or you might be no use at all. And once she's learned all she can from you, why should they keep you around?"

Yue resisted the urge to take a step back—she'd only dunk herself in swamp water if she stepped off her little ice patch—and eyed the princess closely instead. "Even if I had an answer to that," she said, "I do not think I would tell you."

"Oh?" Azula said. "And why's that?"

"Because," Yue said, confident now as she had not been before, "you are not real."

.*.*.*.

Sokka was glad, now, that he had the sword; his fans were sharp, but there was something about the hacking motion you could use with a sword that was more satisfying when you were frustrated.

He sliced another knot of vines out of his way, and stumbled a few steps further.

He'd given up on staying dry almost immediately—he'd been doused when the vines had yanked him over into the bog, and without Katara or Yue around, there was no way for him to avoid wading around. He'd nearly lost a boot to the muck twice now, and his pants were never, ever going to dry.

He still wasn't sure where he was, or even how long he'd been wandering around, although the ache in his sword arm said it had been at least a little while. He would have felt stupid just staying in one place and waiting for Katara to come find him; but he was starting to think it might have been a good idea anyway.

Still, it was too late now, he thought; and then he hewed another tangle of vines out of the way, and that was _totally_ a person standing across the clearing from him.

He almost punched his hand into the air to celebrate, except there was a sword in it and his arm was tired—but he did grin, and he was so pleased to have found somebody that he slogged halfway across, splashing with every step, before he actually took a good look and had to stop short.

"You—Father?" he said, incredulous.

Father had been facing away from him, which was part of what had made him hard to recognize; but he turned when Sokka spoke, and smiled. "Sokka," he said, and his voice was exactly the way Sokka remembered it.

Sokka laughed, a little hysteria sneaking in around the edges, and splashed the last few steps without even feeling the slimy water that squelched between his toes. "_Father_," he said again, because it was the only word left in his head.

Father grinned, and then glanced behind Sokka. "And your sister?" he said. "She's not here, is she?"

"I—no, I'm—I've gotten a little lost," Sokka admitted; but Father didn't look surprised, or disappointed, or even worried.

He looked pleased.

"I'm sure we'll find her, though?" Sokka said, a little uncertainly.

"No," Father said, abrupt, and then seemed to remember himself, and smiled again. "No, you had better come with me."

Sokka frowned. "But Katara, she—"

"Your sister has a job to do," Father said, almost sharp. "You know that, Sokka. That's why you need to come with me."

Sokka shook his head. This was seriously weird. "What? But she's—she needs help!"

"I know that," Father said, and then sighed. "I left you behind for a reason, Sokka—I didn't know this would happen."

Sokka sloshed back a step, involuntary, and his heart was pounding. "What?" he said again; his tongue felt thick, clumsy in his mouth.

Father laughed. "'Too young'?" he said. "You were the oldest boy we left in the village! This is exactly what I mean—how can you possibly be so foolish? You can't even tell when your own father is lying to you." He shook his head. "You would only have slowed us down—but I would have taken you anyway, if I'd known what your sister was, and that you'd insist on going with her. Your mother should never have let you."

Sokka stared. There was something wrong with all this, something to do with how neatly it lined up with everything he'd ever been afraid Father would say to him; but he couldn't pick it out of the half-formed protests roiling through his head, not one of them articulate enough to make it out of his mouth.

"But it's all right," Father said, and his tone was almost soothing. "I'll take you with me now, and that way your sister will finally be able to get something done without you stumbling around."

At that, Sokka had to shake his head. "No," he said, "no—I promised Mother—this isn't—" He tried to drag his flailing thoughts into some kind of order. "You—you aren't even here, you're on the other side of the continent. You could never have gotten here so fast." He swallowed, backing up again, and felt his mouth pinch flat. "You're not my father," he said, as firmly as his shaking voice would allow, and turned around; and when he turned back, after a long moment of nothing but his heart thundering in his ears, there was nothing there but a rotten stump.


	10. The Swamp, Part 2

Suki eyed the branch. A little small, but she'd guess it was at least as thick as her wrist, which meant it would probably hold her.

She reached up and grabbed it with one hand, and set her boots against the bark; a quick scrabbling push, and she swung a leg over it and peered back down at the swamp.

It was a risk, of course, but she'd picked a mostly vineless tree, and even with the mist she could see further from up here than she could down there. She scanned the area to her right first, but the only flutter of movement was too high to be anything but a bird. She turned around to check her left, and nearly toppled off the branch sideways.

_Kyoshi_ was sitting there, as casually as though she hadn't been dead for around two hundred years—she had no paint on her face, but Suki had been sneaking into the shrine to look at the painting of her since she was a little girl, and she knew what Kyoshi looked like. She was wearing full battle dress, and she clearly hadn't climbed the tree to reach the branch she was sitting on, because there wasn't a mark on it.

No, Suki thought, of course she hadn't climbed the tree, she was a spirit. But why in the world had she come to Suki now, of all times?

Kyoshi was smiling at her, very slightly; it was disconcerting, without the makeup. "I am sorry," she said. "I should have been your mother."

Suki stared at her uncertainly. "I ... don't understand," she ventured. "You _are_ Kyoshi, aren't you? I mean—you look so different—"

Kyoshi tilted her head. "Are you less yourself—less one of my warriors—when you have no paint?" she said.

"No," Suki said instantly. "Of course not."

"Neither am I," Kyoshi said. "You were there, in the pool in the north."

It wasn't a question, but Suki nodded anyway.

"This place is something like that," Kyoshi said. "There is a place like it, in the spirit world. There are many swamps, many places to be mired, in the spirit world; but there is one just like this, and the path between them is short and easy to walk. It is easy for thoughts and dreams to pass—for a strong fear or a strong hope to drift between and take on a life of its own. Yours—"

"Would have been my mother," Suki said, beginning to understand. "But you came to me instead."

She was rewarded with another quiet smile. "To explain," Kyoshi confirmed. "You must not fear anything you see. Such visions may offer you insight, but they will be nothing more—or less—than that. They are truths of the self, or, once in a great while, messages from the spirits; but they can only rarely tell you anything some part of you does not already know."

"But the others," Suki said. "They don't know any of this?"

"The Avatar is ... occupied," Kyoshi said. "I could not speak to her. But you are mine, and I am never far from you."

It could have sounded creepy, but Kyoshi said it kindly, comfortingly, and Suki felt a smile break across her face without her intending it. She was going to remember this until the day she died.

Abruptly, Kyoshi lost her Avatar's composure, and grinned back. "You were very young," she said, "and it was a difficult road for you. But you have done well, and if I had chosen myself I could not have picked better." She was suddenly less substantial than she had been, her edges dissolving; and the last thing to go was her smiling face, and the hand she had extended gently toward Suki's shoulder.

* * *

><p>Katara hurried around another trunk, just in time to see the trailing edge of a robe vanish beyond a tall lump of root, <em>again<em>.

This was getting utterly ridiculous. It wasn't Yue, that was becoming obvious, because Yue would have stopped when she heard Katara running after her, and this person seemed to be seriously enjoying leading Katara around in circles.

Well, maybe not circles—she wasn't sure where she was any more, except that she was coming up a gentle rise that meant she could finally get away from the water.

"Hurry up!" Aang said—easy for him to say when he didn't have to touch the ground, or dodge around the trees.

The other side of the rise sloped down again, as it had to, and Katara stumbled down it as quickly as she could without actually losing her balance. There was a clear space ahead, an open sort of corridor between two rows of trees, and she could see the person at last, she _could_; they'd finally stopped, whoever they were, and hadn't started running again by the time she reached the water.

"Is that a girl?" Katara said, startled, after a long moment.

It certainly _looked_ like one—with her hair high, in a long fine dress, though why she was wearing something like that in the middle of a swamp, Katara couldn't guess. She had turned to face Katara, and she grinned, higher on one side of her mouth than the other.

"And a flying boar," Aang added, sounding just as confused as Katara felt.

It was as though the girl had heard them; she laughed and lifted a hand, and then a sudden splash of water obscured her, and when it had fallen down again, she and the winged boar were both gone.

"Katara—_Katara_!" Aang said, suddenly loud, and Katara was already bringing her arms up when she figured out why.

The splash—she'd been staring at the girl, she hadn't been paying attention, but the splash hadn't been a branch falling or anything; it had been the swamp-thing, and even now it was raising its arms and sending another lump of water flying at her like a giant fist.

She yanked the swamp water up between and froze it into a wall, but the water and the air were both so warm that the ice was pretty halfhearted. The swamp-thing's water-fist didn't hit her, but it was enough to break the wall apart, and she yelped and dodged as chunks of melting ice came hurtling down around her. She didn't have time to catch them and redirect them; so she pulled a handful of water up to knock the worst of them aside.

.*.*.*.

It was probably sort of bad that Suki so readily recognized the sound of Katara shouting in distress; but she did, and she sprinted toward it. She had to slosh through a couple of pools and climb over a thick tangle of roots that came up to her hip, but when she was over it, Katara was there, a shield of water raised in front of her—and so was the creature, towering over the far end of the clearing.

"Katara!" someone shouted, and Suki almost thought she had done it without realizing it until Sokka rounded a tree and splashed into the water across from Suki. He looked strange, his face pinched with something heavier than concern—but now wasn't the moment to figure out why.

Katara did something quick and sharp with her arms and hands, and sent a whirling blade of water flying at the creature; but both of its arms were cut short, not just one, and when the left one fell, it revealed Yue, standing behind the creature with her hands upraised just like Katara's.

The creature groaned, drawing more greenery from somewhere inside itself—but it took time, so Katara could obviously afford the moment it took to turn and say, "Sokka—Sokka, perfect, are you okay?"

Sokka blinked. "Me? I'm—I'm fine. What do you need me to do?"

"Get closer, if you can. Yue and Suki and I can keep it distracted, as long as we can convince it to chase her and keep cutting away its arms—if you can cut away at the middle of it, maybe we can make it fall apart."

Even as she listened, Suki was already moving in front of them, putting herself front and center, and the creature's mask-still face was turning toward her, its newly regrown arms reaching out to grasp at her. But it seemed different—thinner, maybe, in the middle, like fixing its arms had taken something from the rest of it.

Behind it, Yue settled her feet and chopped at it again, and Suki leapt over its grasping tendrils a moment before they went suddenly limp and tumbled into the water. Yue shifted again, and something peculiar happened to its shoulder.

"What did you do?" Suki shouted at her, dodging a low-hanging branch.

"I think I _bent_ it," Yue yelled back, understandably disconcerted—who had ever heard of bending spirits? "Everything that it's made of is wet—"

Wet—that by itself was strange. Suki thought of Kyoshi, her pristine battle dress; not that spirits couldn't manifest themselves looking any way they chose, but the appearance of wetness would be part of them, then. Not real water that Yue could bend away if she wanted to.

Yue frowned in concentration and pulled at it again, Katara doing the same to the other side; and at the same moment, Sokka came within sword's reach of its loose green leg. He swung at it, vines falling away as he sliced, and that was apparently too much—its great lumpy shoulders came suddenly apart, and most of what was left fell abruptly on Sokka's head.

"Sokka!" Katara shouted.

Suki was closest; she hurried forward, splashing through the swamp, and yanked at the tangled mass of vines. "Sokka?"

"I'm here, I'm okay," he said, muffled, and an arm poked up perhaps a foot away from her hands and dragged a particularly large knot off of Sokka's head. He was sitting in the shallow water, vines piled around him, and his free hand was rubbing his head. "Where did it—aha!" He peered down into the water, and then stuck his arm in and felt around for a moment.

When his hand came back up, the spirit's face was clutched in it.

"It's just a mask," he said. "I _knew_ it—it hit me in the head on the way down."

"A mask?" Suki said, baffled. "But if it was a spirit—"

"No spirit, only us," someone said, far too close to be Katara or Yue. "Do not move, or we will kill you."

.*.*.*.

Iyama signaled with a backward shift of her foot, and Nagayo obediently stepped forward with the rest of them, moving out from behind his tree with his hands at the ready. Together, the twelve of them formed a loose circle; there was nowhere for the outsiders to run.

An exceptionally difficult group of travelers, these four. Most did not fight the creature, but fled; and if they were split up, a vision or two usually convinced them it would be wiser to wait at the edge of the swamp for signs of their companions. But not these four.

"You are Waterbenders," the white-haired girl said slowly, and lowered her arms, even though Iyama was barely a step away from her friends. "The creature was yours."

The other Waterbender girl lowered her arms also, which was probably the only reason Iyama answered. "Yes," she said. "Many have attempted to pass through this swamp, whether whole armies or small bands of spies—rarely Waterbenders, but it makes no difference. We are not here to further your war."

"We're not furthering the war at all!" the other Waterbender said. "We're trying to end it."

"Through your victory over your enemies?" Iyama said, and Nagayo tried not to snort. Foolish of the girl, to, what—attempt to be oblique and hope they would not notice? "Do not think we are with you because we are also Waterbenders. The Fire Nation has tried to burn us away; the Earth Kingdoms, to move the land and drain the swamp. No matter which you work for, you will not get what you want. We will not allow ourselves to be destroyed to make your war easier."

"Actually, we sort of have friends on both sides," the boy said thoughtfully. "I mean, that lady who stabbed Zhao—"

"We don't work for either of them," the girl with the short hair clarified. "Not really."

"No? You are Earth Kingdom," Iyama said.

"Granted," the girl said, "but I'm not here to drain your swamp. I'm here to serve the Avatar," and she nodded over her shoulder at the second Waterbender, the girl with the long braid.

The Avatar—was it possible? Iyama eyed them closely, and then glanced sideways, at Tama, Hayu, and then Nagayo himself. It had been a long time since Aroha-star-eyes had traveled from the swamp to serve the world, but not so long that anyone had forgotten. The tales of her life were still told around the fire. "The tohunga will know the truth of it," he said.

Iyama looked at him a moment longer, and then at the girl; she was suspicious, and rightly so, but it would do no harm to take them. If they lied, Anaru would know it. "All right," Iyama agreed at last, and Nagayo went back around the tree to fetch the nearest canoe.

* * *

><p>Probably Katara should have tried to keep track of the route they took to reach the village, but after the first few winding turns, it became impossible—to stay on open water, they had to twist back and forth around trees and low banks and mossy roots.<p>

The people were definitely Waterbenders, though: when all the canoes were filled, there was a bender in the stern of every one, and they sped through the swamp with a definite wake behind them.

They'd been split up, Sokka and Suki and Yue each in a separate canoe, and Katara with the woman who seemed to be in charge. She spent the whole trip watching Katara, wary but no longer quite so hostile, and she didn't seem to mind when Katara looked right back.

Katara had never heard of Waterbenders anywhere but the north and south poles—it was strange to think that there was a whole other tribe hidden away in here. The woman in charge was clearly strong, wide-shouldered, and the headband that held back her hair was woven with a bright and lovely pattern, much like the designs that covered her shirt. There were earrings in her ears—bone, Katara thought—and, like everyone else, men and women alike, her skirt looked like it was made from thick grasses.

Nearly as striking as the weaving on her shirt were her tattoos: a tight, sharp pattern on her chin, and another circling her arm. However long they had been living here, it must have been a very long time, because Katara had never seen anything like it, in the north or the south.

The village stood on a bank between two massive old trees—most of the trees in the swamp were big, but these two were huge. The bank was formed at least partly out of the sort of net formed by the enormous tangle where the trees' roots had run into each other.

When the canoes pulled up beside it, steered neatly into place by the Waterbenders at their sterns, there was a woman already waiting for them—the tohunga, Katara guessed, and she smiled when she saw Katara. "It has been a long time since we've seen you," she said, "we thought perhaps you had gone," and then she turned, and glanced to the side.

Aang was there—he had been able to keep up with the canoes fairly easily, and he had drifted up to prod one of the great trees.

"You can see him?" Katara blurted.

"Wait, she can?" Sokka said.

The woman laughed. "I can," she agreed. "I have walked the paths many times, to cure illnesses or calm spirits or seek answers. There are many spirits that are close to you, Avatar, because of all the people you have been; but he is very close indeed." She turned to the woman who had brought them back. "It was right of you to bring them to me, Iyama," she said. "After all the strangers we have had to turn away to save our swamp, it will be good to have guests again."

.*.*.*.

The tohunga's name was Anaru, and before long she had them settled around a great fire-pit in the center of the village, right in front of the village meeting-house. It had been the Waterbenders who had moved the vines, so when Iyama slipped away for a moment, she came back with Yue's pike in her hands, damp but otherwise intact.

In the rush of excitement—because, Sokka thought, it was always a thrill when they didn't have to worry about getting killed—he had almost forgotten what had happened earlier, before he'd heard Katara shout and he had run away. But once they were seated around the fire with hot food in their hands, Katara turned to Anaru immediately. "I saw something," she said, "in the swamp," and Sokka abruptly didn't feel like eating anymore.

On her other side, Anaru nodded knowingly. "It is good luck to be touched so. If you are strong, the swamp will know it, and show you a piece of yourself—someone you know, often, to teach you."

Good luck, yeah. That was totally what Sokka had been planning to call it.

Suki, on Anaru's other side, was nodding. "I saw Kyoshi," she said. "The actual Kyoshi, I think, not a part of me—that's what she told me."

But Katara frowned. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't—I mean, I don't know who I saw. And she didn't talk to me or anything; she just laughed and ran away."

Anaru smiled. "If you do not know her now, then you will soon."

Katara paused and glanced to the side, but before she could say anything, Anaru laughed again. "Yes," she said, "or something like it."

Sokka groaned, because that was the kind of thing he would have done if he weren't feeling sick and tied up inside. "Oh, not you, too," he said.

Anaru grinned. "The swamp cannot precisely show the future," she elaborated, for the benefit of everybody who couldn't hear dead guys when they asked questions. "But all things are connected to each other—everything in the world is related, touched somehow by something else. You and this girl have not yet met, but that does not mean you are not connected." She glanced at Katara. "You should know it better than anyone, Avatar. You have been so many people, and touched so many thousands more. In a sense, all of the world is part of your family."

.*.*.*.

Katara blinked and looked thoughtful for a minute, and then said something else; but whatever it was, Suki missed most of it, except for a bit about a boar. Sokka had set down his bowl abruptly a couple of minutes ago, and now he had suddenly gotten up. Yue had been sitting on his other side, and she was watching him walk away; when she turned back around, she raised her pale eyebrows at Suki, and jerked her head a little.

Suki suddenly remembered that look on his face in the swamp, the weird one that she hadn't quite been able to understand. She had only seen Kyoshi, and Katara had seen that odd girl; but Sokka, Sokka and Yue, must have seen something else. And whatever Yue had seen, it didn't have her abandoning her supper to stomp away from the fire.

She caught up with him just as he was rounding the back of a house, and reached out to grab his shoulder. "It wasn't real," she said.

He yanked his shoulder out of her grip, irritation written in every line of his face when he turned around. "What?"

"It wasn't real," she repeated. "Whatever it was that you saw, whatever it told you—it came from you. It was—" She tried to remember how Kyoshi had put it. "It might have been something true about you—about yourself, something that you want or something you're afraid of; but that's it. It's not unimportant, but it's not more than that, either."

Sokka shrugged his shoulders—not like he was uncertain, more like something was touching him and he wanted to get it away from him. "It showed Katara the future," he said roughly. "What if what I saw is going to—" He cut himself off.

"It showed Katara a girl that she might meet someday, from a distance," Suki said. "And a flying pig, I think she said. It doesn't sound like yours—"

"But you don't _know_," Sokka said.

"Mine was like yours," Yue said, and Suki turned around; she had followed them, and stopped a few feet away, looking at Sokka with quiet sympathy. "And mine wasn't the future. It was things I had been thinking of—things I did not want to hear. It hurt, but it hurt because I am afraid of it, right now."

Sokka still didn't look happy, precisely; but some sort of weight had left his eyes. "Come on," Suki said. "Come back and finish eating. We've been running around in circles in a swamp all day, don't try to tell me you aren't hungry."

He looked at her a little uncertainly, and then gave in, nodding. "Yeah, actually, I kind of am," he admitted.

And maybe he was quieter than usual for the rest of the evening, eating silently and neatly, and listening to Anaru's stories about the last Avatar from the swamp without yelling any interruptions. But he also didn't say anything when Suki switched seats so she could eat with one knee pressed against his; and when Katara drifted off and started snoring aloud, he had to work to muffle his giggling in Suki's shoulder.

* * *

><p>Zuko stared at the woman's face, and tried to decide whether to ignore her or punch her.<p>

"Beg pardon," Uncle said beside him, "I fear my nephew was not listening."

The woman smiled, gracious, like she was doing them a favor, and said it again. "If you have need, my nieces and nephews have not finished all their supper. If you could help me with the pig chickens, and perhaps with the sweeping, I would be glad to let you have what remains—and a space on the floor besides."

Zuko didn't know where to start—the sheer _presumption_, that they would even sink so low as to dine on what her family had left over—

"You are very kind!" Uncle said, and beamed, as though he truly meant it. "We would be glad to assist in any way we can, although we cannot accept the floor—" _Ah—surely Uncle will keep a __**little**__ dignity!_ "—unless you are certain we will not be a bother."

Zuko turned to gape at Uncle Iroh, because it was clear the woman was not the mad one here; but he was already moving, following the woman as she strode toward her door and nodding along to whatever she was saying.

Certainly, it had been a difficult road since they had left the Avatar temple behind. Uncle had argued that they would be safer from Azula the further they went into the Earth Kingdoms, and that the Avatar might well choose to avoid the front this time; so they had begun the long journey south around the mountains, in order that they might then head east up the Gao River. They had only a little money, and they certainly looked like peasants—but that didn't mean they _were_. What was Uncle thinking?

He meant to catch Uncle's shoulder, to yank him around to demand an answer; but when he reached out his hand, the woman smiled at him and put an old twig broom in it, and then hustled Uncle away behind the house to the source of the honk-clucking.

Zuko stared at it. It didn't look much like the fine hair brooms they used in the palace—nor even the ones they had kept on the ship to keep the deck clear.

After a moment, he realized there was someone looking at him—Uncle, he thought, coming back to tell him they were leaving; but when he looked up, there was only a child, sitting in the doorway and watching him with large round eyes.

They looked at each other warily. Eventually, the boy raised a hand; Zuko almost flinched, but he wasn't Earthbending, only holding out his arm and letting his hand flop limply from the wrist. "You do it like _this_," he said, earnest and too-loud, and flapped his hand back and forth, like the motion of a broom.

"I _know_," Zuko snapped. He truly must look pathetic, if a peasant child thought to educate him on the use of a broom.

The child looked unconvinced. "Well, are you gonna do it?" he said uncertainly.

Azula, Zuko thought, would have set the child on fire; but, as was a source of constant disappointment to everyone around him, he was not Azula. He sighed, and looked at the front step, the short stone walk that led to it. "If you tell anyone about this," he muttered, halfheartedly, "I'm going to kill you."

The child's eyes got even larger; Zuko almost hoped he would cry, so that someone would come and take him away, but he didn't.

Zuko sighed again, bent his back, and set the end of the broom to the first stone. One day, he was going to pay Uncle back for this humiliation.

.*.

He finished the sweeping before Uncle and the woman returned, the large-eyed child watching every moment, so, in the end, he didn't have to kill anyone. When the woman came back around the corner of the house and saw the child in the doorway, she laughed and lifted him into her arms.

"Hey, little Jin," she said fondly. "Did you help our friend?"

Zuko eyed the child, who stared at Zuko over his aunt's shoulder and then said, clearly thinking himself circumspect, "I told him what to do!"

The woman laughed, and carried the boy inside; and Uncle followed her nearly to the door before he realized Zuko wasn't behind him. "Nephew?" he said.

Zuko told himself he didn't want to yell when the woman might still hear him. "How can you bear to do this, Uncle?" he said, and if it came out so quiet that it sounded more like a real question than a demand for justification, he ignored it.

Uncle looked at him for a moment, and then touched his shoulder. "Dignity is a lovely thing, my nephew," he said, "but it will not share its food with you, or give you a place on its floor to rest. And if those things are what you need, what good is dignity to you?"

Zuko hated it when Uncle asked him questions like that. He never had a good answer. "We should—we should have _made_ them—"

"We could have," Uncle said, his eyes heavy on Zuko's face. "But why take what we would be given for five minutes of sweeping and communion with a few pig chickens?" His hand tightened on Zuko's shoulder. "Do you really feel so much has been taken from you, nephew?"

_Yes_ was the obvious answer, but for some reason it wasn't coming out of Zuko's mouth; and he was thinking of that stupid girl again, that girl and her leg, and how little her scar seemed to have taken from her.

Uncle squeezed his shoulder again, and then turned and went inside. Zuko stayed on the walk for a long moment, the broom still in his hand; but then his stomach growled, and, grudgingly, he began to climb the steps.


	11. The Champion of Gaoling, Part 1

Hope everybody who celebrates it had an excellent Christmas! My Christmas gift to you: Toph. :D

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6: The Champion of Gaoling<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>Kishen had been right: she reached Phnan Chnang a day later than she'd meant to, thanks to a sudden rain and a washed-out road, and it was no problem at all. The ships were still being loaded; when she reached the bridge, Kishen had her orders, still in the roll with the seal unbroken. Soldiers, to be taken to the western coast of the Earth Kingdoms, a bit to the south. Apparently the troops attempting to break the siege of New Ozai required reinforcements. And with soldiers to transport came supplies, too: clothes and weapons, in addition to the usual hefty barrels of drinking water and provisions.<p>

Honestly, she felt a little insulted. Even without her there to open the orders and officially accept, Kishen had taken several officers' word for the truth of it and allowed the process to begin—and he was waiting on deck when she stepped back out of the bridge, overseeing the bustle with calm authority like her presence or absence made no difference whatsoever.

He turned to glance at her over his shoulder when she paused, and something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because the corner of his mouth quirked very slightly. "I would have sent someone in a day or two, sir," he said, "to make sure you weren't dead."

"The mark of a truly exemplary officer," Yin said dryly.

Kishen let his smile get a little wider. "How was it, sir?" he said.

Yin put a hand to the wall of the bridge, and looked away. A fair enough question, but she had no idea what a fully truthful answer might be, which made it somewhat harder to compose a lie.

"Sir?" Kishen said.

"My little brother is too tall," Yin said at last, letting a little wryness color her voice. "But it was good to see my mother. I had missed her cooking." Even more than she had realized at first. Ship food was mainland food, and usually from the central region; even without homesickness for seasoning, there was nothing quite like the taste of prahok.

She glanced at Kishen, and this time he was the one looking away—absently, though, more like his gaze had drifted into the middle distance than because he was avoiding her eyes.

"What about you?" she said, a little awkwardly, because she had only just realized that she didn't know.

He shrugged. "My mother is a terrible cook," he said. "And yet I miss hers, too."

Yin let her lips twitch to acknowledge the humor in it; but that wasn't quite what she had meant to ask. "And how long will it be," she tried, "until you visit her again?"

He looked over the rail at the water, and the arms of the harbor beyond, the ocean flat and glittering in the sun. "A good while, I should think," he said. "My parents' families are from the south; but my great-great-grandparents were some of the first in the colonies." He smiled at her, but it was odd, flat and humorless. "My great-grandparents were born there, and my grandparents; my mother has never seen the mainland with her own eyes." He hesitated for a moment. "This is the closest I have come to it myself."

Yin blinked. Of course she had heard of such families; it had become increasingly common, as the war persisted through decades, for colonial citizens to live and die without ever setting foot in the homeland. But she had never actually met anyone who had never been back, not until now—and it must have been unspeakably hard for him, to have the place he called home be part of the lands they warred against. "I hope you have the chance to visit the mainland someday," she said, "if you wish it."

He smiled again, and this time it was not flat, only a little rueful. "If only I could tell whether I wished it or not, I think many things in my life would be simpler."

Yin thought of the district gates in Phnan Chnang, of the new Fire Fountain City and her little sister's bitter voice, and knew exactly what he meant.

"Sir?" someone said behind them.

Yin turned; it was Chan Dan, one of her new squadron commanders. A quiet man, from the mainland south, and on the rare occasions he did open his mouth, he was always scrupulously polite.

"Forgive me for interrupting," he said, bowing. "They tell us they are nearly finished, and we should be able to launch tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Commander," Yin said, and looked out over the rail. A simple enough mission, delivering men and supplies; but given the way things had fallen out during her last simple mission, she suspected it wasn't going to stay that way.

* * *

><p>Wan Liu brushed the last of the dirt off the stone, and then sighed and straightened up, grimacing at the creak in her back.<p>

Perhaps her standards for cleanliness were a bit too high. She only wanted the path clear and neat; no doubt the boy had done his best, but some people were simply not cut out to keep house well.

She would have fed him anyway, of course, for he had been far too thin—but it had not hurt that his uncle had been excellent with the pig chickens. They were quite hard to catch, but Mushi had not grown impatient, and once they were caught, he had not flinched from their muddy feet or sharp beaks.

Their manners had been excellent also; even the boy, who had spoken barely at all, had eaten with care and restraint. Monks, perhaps, or a traveling sage with his own nephew for apprentice. Surely nothing dramatic, Wan Liu thought, which was perhaps why the mongoose dragons drew even with her door at precisely that moment.

Mongoose dragons were not a wholly uncommon sight, but they were expensive creatures to care for, and not everyday beasts of burden. Yet the girl who sat astride the first, cloaked and hooded, looked eminently comfortable there, as if she had ridden one many times before. "And you," she said, "have _you_ seen an old man and a boy?"

Evidently she had been asking around. Wan Liu leaned her broom against her shoulder, and considered. "You have misplaced some?" she said.

The girl looked angry for a moment; but the boy who had drawn up beside her touched her elbow, and said, "Please, honored mistress: my friend's brother and uncle, wrongly exiled for crimes they did not commit."

The girl drew a breath, as though to calm herself, and then dipped her head the barest distance in apology. "I hope you will forgive my temper," she said. "I have been looking for them for a very long time, to tell them they may come home. I've missed them so much—my impatience has gotten the better of me."

One of the girls behind her coughed abruptly, covering her face with her hand for a long moment; but the girl in front did not so much as twitch, her eyes still fixed to Wan Liu's face.

Good of her, to search for so long; no wonder their manners had been refined, if they had fallen from some higher position in disgrace. Wan Liu smiled. "Then you will be glad to hear they are well," she said. "They were here not more than a few days ago; they assisted me, and slept here for the night."

The girl in front smiled, though there was rather more amusement than relief in it, to Wan Liu's mind. "And which way did they go?"

"They left to the south," Wan Liu said, pointing down the road, "though I cannot say where they have gone since."

She meant to say more, but paused; the girl was still smiling, but there was something different about it, some sharp cool edge that had not been there before. "They stayed here, you said?" The girl tapped a finger against her mongoose dragon's reins thoughtfully. "You sheltered them."

The answer was yes; but Wan Liu, looking at the girl's eyes, abruptly did not want to say it. She was the only one with her hood up, but she was not the only one cloaked—they all were, the cloaks drawn closed across their chests even though the day was warm. The front, where the Fire Nation pressed in toward the mountains, was to the north, and had been as long as Wan Liu could remember; but that did not excuse her lack of caution.

She cursed aloud, dropped the broom, and ran. The girl took her time, which was generosity Wan Liu would not have expected from a Firebender: she let Wan Liu reach the door before she sent a blast of fire toward the roof, and Wan Liu had plenty of time to wake Qingying with a shout and hurry the children to the back door.

* * *

><p>Katara gazed down the avenue and grinned.<p>

Taneko definitely hadn't led them astray: one side of the street was taken up for quite a way with the grounds of an Earthbending school, and Katara was fairly certain she could see a sign for another in the distance. There were flyers on every wall advertising Earthbending competitions in the lower districts; there was a man moving four huge sacks of rice by bending the large stone tile they were stacked on, and a woman grinding flour, moving the massive grinding stone with easy flicks of her fingers.

"Oh, you are _definitely_ going to find a teacher here," Sokka said. "Look at that—she's not even moving her arms!"

"Well, it can't be just anybody," Katara said. "King Bumi said I should look for somebody who waited and listened, like he did—"

"Fair enough," Suki said, "but I think if you're hoping to find another king in a metal box with crazy hair, you might be out of luck."

Yue giggled; Katara shot them both a flat look.

"She only means you should not close your mind," Yue said, a little apologetic.

"Yeah—maybe he meant that _you_ should wait and listen, and not ignore people just because you think they don't wait and listen, because maybe they do and you don't know it because you aren't waiting and listening." Sokka nodded knowingly.

"... Thanks, Sokka, that was really helpful," Aang murmured at her shoulder, and Katara gave in and let herself laugh. Maybe things were going to go wrong again—almost definitely, things were going to go wrong again. But right now, they were where they were supposed to be, and the tense nervous part of Katara that always felt a step behind had gone quiet. They were in a city full of Earthbenders and it was still almost eight months until Roku's deadline—maybe not enough time to do it right, but enough time to at least try.

"Okay," Katara said. "Let's start with this one."

.*.

Okay, so she had glared a little, but Suki and Yue probably had been right: she couldn't afford to ignore any options just because they didn't fit Bumi's description immediately. But except for about thirty seconds at the beginning, Master Yu had shown no ability to listen at all, let alone to the earth.

"Somehow I don't think this is the guy," Aang said doubtfully, and Katara waited until Master Yu glanced away to wrinkle her nose in agreement.

Their Earth Kingdom disguises had been getting a lot of wear lately, and Katara had figured it would be easier to make her case for being the Avatar if she looked completely Water Tribe again—after all, what Waterbender would be trying to find an Earthbending teacher, except the Avatar?

But, as it turned out, she hadn't really needed to. During the time they'd been in the north, the rumors about the Avatar had apparently spread like wildfire, despite the Fire Nation's efforts—and so had some of the posters of her from the northwest Earth Kingdoms. She still wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing; but either way, Master Yu had shown no surprise when she had told him who she was. He had only peered at her for a moment and then clapped his hands together and smiled.

And he hadn't stopped talking since.

"—and as you can see, all the training rooms are very well-equipped—the Avatar, of course, will have her own, we would never make so august a personage train in a class with just any ordinary students—"

"Of course," Yue interrupted suddenly; evidently, Katara thought, she was tired of him, too, though her tone was surprisingly cold. And it was peculiar—Yue was shorter than Master Yu, but she somehow managed to look abruptly as though she were not. "We would expect nothing less."

Katara blinked.

"However," Yue continued in the same tone, "surely you see that the Avatar requires only the best. Your school is quite impressive, Master Yu; but only a fool declares the first plum on the bough the best of the season."

"I—yes, quite so, quite so," Master Yu said hurriedly. He looked nearly as off-balance as Katara felt.

Yue leaned toward him a little, as though to speak in confidence, but her voice wasn't actually low enough that Katara couldn't hear. "And of course the Avatar cannot appear partial, no matter what the obvious truth of a situation may be; she must seem to consider every option, even when she may have already chosen a course of action."

This seemed to restore Master Yu's equilibrium, and he smiled like Yue had imparted a delicate secret. "Of course—balance in all things," he said, and bowed. "I hope you find our noble city to your liking, Avatar; and we are honored by your ... consideration." He didn't actually wink at Katara, but she wouldn't have been particularly surprised if he had.

She tried to figure out what to say—or, rather, what the Avatar Yue had just painted her as would say—and settled for an imperious nod. "A pleasure, Master Yu," she said, voice as close to Yue's haughty tone as she could manage, and then she did her best to sweep out the door and down the hall.

.*.

The second the gate of Master Yu's Academy had closed behind them, Sokka burst out laughing, and Suki had to clutch his sleeve to keep her balance as she chuckled. "That was _priceless_," she said to Yue, wiping a little at her eyes. "Did you see his face?"

Yue grinned. "I only did as he expected," she said, a little bashful. "In my father's halls, I was often shown the value of meeting such expectations. People rarely look further."

"I'm just glad we got out of there," Aang said, and Katara grinned at him. "I thought he was never going to stop."

"Well-_equipped_," Sokka said, between gasps for breath. "Well-equipped! Yeah, with _rocks_."

"Yeah," Katara agreed, "somehow I don't think he was the one. But it sounds like there's plenty to choose from."

"Let's hope so," Suki said, "and let's hope most of them aren't like that guy. Okay, _Avatar_," and her tone was so much like Master Yu's that Katara stuck out her tongue. "Which way next?"

* * *

><p>Honestly, Enyu didn't much mind being sent into town to arrange the young mistress's lessons; it was an easy task, no scrubbing yourself into hand cramps or straining your back with heavy lifting, and if she walked perhaps a little more slowly than she had to, well, there was no way for anyone back at the mansion to know it.<p>

And it was a pleasant day for a walk, sweet and sunny. Even the dusty streets of the city center weren't so bad, with a southern breeze off the sea, and Enyu was almost sorry to reach the side door of the Academy.

Weng was waiting for her today, the door wide open to let in the wind, and he grinned, more widely the further she came up the street. Sometimes she resented him a little for having such a stupidly nice smile. It was unfair.

"Enyu," he said, rising so that he could bow properly.

"Master Weng," she said, bowing back, and he laughed.

"I told you to stop calling me that," he said.

Enyu grinned involuntarily, and then composed herself. "It is the proper address for a teacher of such stature," she said, demure.

Weng made a face. "Yes, but it also makes me sound incredibly old."

Enyu laughed. "So," she said, "how is Master Yu today? Will he be in a fine mood if the young mistress should have her lessons tomorrow?"

Usually, the answer was a roll of the eyes, or another ridiculous face; but this time, Weng actually paused to look thoughtful. "He will, I think," he said, and then grinned when she raised an eyebrow. "Oh," he said, "so you haven't heard, then?"

"Heard what?"

"Why, the Avatar herself graced Master Yu with her patronage!" Weng tilted a hand theatrically to indicate the open door behind him, and the hallway beyond. "She walked these very halls with her own two feet not an hour ago. Or it looked like her, at least—and she was dressed like Water Tribe. I didn't see her bend myself, but I'd believe it. Apparently she's searching for an Earthbending teacher; she must be planning to stay in the city for a while."

Enyu raised her eyebrows. Perhaps she would walk a little more quickly on her way back; the master was going to want to hear this.

.*.*.*.

There were no more masters like Yu, for which Katara was extremely grateful; but even so, none of them seemed quite right. Mistress Shao was a pleasant woman with a kindly face who taught her students by hurling rocks at their faces until they learned to catch them out of self-defense; Mistress Ongdai seemed to think that shouting at the top of her considerable lungs was the best way to pass on instructions; and Master Mu Tao apparently made his classes meditate for hours. Sitting and staring intently at a rock might have been waiting, but it was waiting without any sign of the moment of best action Bumi had mentioned. Not quite what Katara was supposed to be looking for.

They took a break at midday, dusty and a little dispirited, for grilled rice balls and hot dumplings from a vendor in the street. Katara was so preoccupied that she might easily have walked right by; but then Sokka groaned and said, "Whatever that smell is coming from, I need to eat it," and she suddenly realized how hungry she was.

As always when the tangible members of the group stopped to eat, Aang was stuck drifting around aimlessly, which was why he spotted the quartet of guards approaching before anybody else.

"Wonder where they're headed," he said, and Katara turned her head. Evidently somewhere important—they were dressed in fine uniforms, better quality than most you saw on city guards, and there was a certain imperious tilt to their heads.

They drew closer, slowing as they did, and then they came to a stop.

Katara stared at them, halfway through biting into the side of a dumpling. ... Was she in their way?

She mumbled something that was meant to be "Excuse me" around the side of the dumpling, and backed up a little—they were sort of in the street, although they certainly weren't blocking the whole thing.

The guards did not proceed.

Katara swallowed the bite and lowered her dumpling. "Can I help you?" she said uncertainly.

The nearest guard eyed the dumpling with obvious disapproval. "Honored Avatar," he said, sounding somewhat dubious.

"Oh—um, yes. Yes, that's me," Katara said. If Yangchen were here, Katara thought, she would laugh. Or maybe cry.

The guard's expression didn't change—his eyebrows didn't so much as twitch—but he still managed to convey that it was a strain to refrain from comment. "The Bei Fong family wishes to extend an invitation for you to lodge at their estate for the duration of your stay in Gaoling; theirs is a humble home, and they do not deserve the honor, but if there is the slightest chance they can assist the Avatar, they are grateful for it."

"Um," Katara said. She glanced over her shoulder.

Suki tipped her shoulders, ever so slightly; clearly she didn't see any danger in the offer. Yue looked willing to do whatever Katara decided, and Sokka was mouthing "TAKE IT" over and over.

Well, Katara thought, it couldn't hurt to have something to sleep on other than dirt; and perhaps the Bei Fongs would be able to tell them where to look for the best Earthbenders in the city. "That's—very kind?" she said. "We—I—I mean, my friends can come, too?"

"The Bei Fongs will find the space somehow," the guard said, very flatly.

"Then we'd be glad to accept," Katara said.

.*.

She understood why the guard's tone had been so dry when they reached the Bei Fong home—"estate" had definitely been a better choice of description than "humble home".

It lay a fair distance from the bustling main streets of Gaoling, in a pleasant, grassy space beside a small river; the wall around it was tall for somebody's house, taller than anything they'd seen in the noble district of Hansing, and the gate was pretty immense.

It also happened to be topped with a beautifully carved flying boar, clouds curling away to the sides as though blown there by its wings.

"We _are_ in the right place," Aang said, hushed even though no one else could hear him. "Look at that, it's just like the one that girl in the swamp had with her."

Katara glanced at the guards and decided it might be best not to say anything aloud; but she elbowed Yue, who was nearest, and glanced pointedly up at the boar, and Yue's eyes widened gratifyingly.

The Bei Fong estate had multiple buildings—Katara would have guessed that it were a village if she hadn't been told otherwise. "Your hosts are sadly unable to attend you immediately," the guard said, leading them toward one of the multiple guest houses, "but they hope you will join them for supper this evening." He gave Katara's hair and shirt a dubious look. "You may wish to use the time to—freshen up, Avatar."

"Wow, _thanks_," Sokka said, as soon as the door had slid shut behind them. "What a totally gracious guy."

"It is a very fine house," Yue said diplomatically. "Very generous. And it would not precisely be a burden to be clean."

"I know I still smell like swamp," Suki said frankly. "Which I'm guessing isn't a perfume that's going to go over well at the Bei Fong family's supper table."

"No," Katara agreed, "probably not."

* * *

><p>Ostrich horses were somewhat less rideable in the forest; Zuko had been the one to discover it, to his considerable chagrin, and now he and Uncle were walking, leading their steeds behind them, and there was a lingering red mark on Zuko's forehead.<p>

Stupid trees.

At least Uncle had learned his lesson and stopped trying to make tea from everything with leaves. Song's mother had given him a little packet of hers, but he was using it sparingly, trying to make it last.

Zuko snorted at the ridiculousness of it, leading his ostrich horse around a tree, and then paused; Uncle was ahead of him, and had chosen to descend into what looked like an old streambed. The slope was a little steep, but—Zuko eyed it. It probably wouldn't be so bad.

And it wasn't, until the ground suddenly slid out from under him about halfway down. His only consolation was that he could hear Uncle shout in surprise at the same moment he began to fall. At least it wasn't just him this time.

He didn't realize that it was a trap until it was almost over; the dirt seemed to be done shifting, his ostrich horse had kicked in panic but only managed to hit him in the shoulder, and he was halfway to his feet when the ground suddenly burst into motion again.

This time, though, it was not any average shifting of earth: crude walls of stone broke upward from the ground around them, neatly closing him, Uncle, and two frightened ostrich horses into a little square of rock. There was not enough space inside for the kind of running leap Zuko would need to even try to jump the walls—and besides, whoever had just Earthbent all this up around them was undoubtedly still there.

Would nothing ever go as he wished? How could even his exile-within-an-exile be so riddled with misfortune? Zuko resisted the urge to punch the wall beside him, and instead tilted his head back, waiting; and, sure enough, a few moments later a girl landed lightly on the edge of their little stone cage.

"Sorry about that," she said, without preamble, "but you know how it is—we have to be careful."

"We?" Uncle Iroh said, but the girl only shook her head.

"Me first," she said. "I'm the one who's got you in a box. Who are you?"

"My name is Mushi," Uncle said readily, "and this is my young nephew, Li."

If they kept this up much longer, Zuko thought, they were both going to forget their real names.

"We are humble travelers," Uncle continued, "from the northwest."

Something in the girl's face softened a little, and her stance abruptly relaxed. "Fleeing the front," she inferred, which was not all that far from the truth—they were, but not for the reason she was probably thinking. She eyed their clothes, which supported the story quite well: they had not acquired the grime and wear of travel sparingly. "Where are you going?"

"East," Uncle said, "around the mountains. My nephew is very strong, but I am an old man, and a mountain pass would not be kind to me."

The girl smiled, and then leapt back off the wall and out of view; and a moment later, the walls slid back into the ground with a rumble. "Well," she said, "if you'd like some food and a chance to rest your ostrich horses, come with me."

"Wait," Zuko said sharply. "Our turn, now. Who are you?"

"Oh, yeah. Fair enough," the girl said, and bowed, the motion just exaggerated enough to be a little mocking. "I'm Tashi."

* * *

><p>"Darling, are you awake?"<p>

Toph sighed. Mama's timing had always been pretty terrible, but sometimes Toph was seriously in awe. She had been sitting in here for _hours_, quiet and still like she wasn't bored out of her head, and there hadn't been a sound; but now, the second she had a leg over the windowsill, Mama came knocking.

She pulled her foot back over the sill and smoothed her gown until her fingers could find no wrinkles, and then turned around. "Yes, of course, Mama," she said.

Mama opened the door and came in—wood wasn't as good as dirt, not by half, and Mama's footsteps were light as a lady's ought to be, but Toph could still tell. "You are such a good girl," Mama said kindly, and a hand came down on Toph's hair, gentle. She meant it, too; but she'd take it back in a second if she knew.

"I try, Mama," Toph said, and Mama laughed daintily.

"Oh, Toph," she said, and touched Toph's shoulder. "I came to tell you: we have guests today, my dear."

"Guests?" Toph said.

"Yes," and Mama's voice betrayed a sudden excitement. "The Avatar herself! She has come to Gaoling to find a teacher—and of course we could not let her stay in the city." Mama nearly suppressed a shudder, but not quite; her fingers twitched on Toph's shoulder. "No, it would not do. We have invited her to stay here instead, and we will have supper in the larger hall tonight, in her honor."

"It's going to be so wonderful," Toph said in her cheeriest voice; but she could barely hear herself over the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. The Avatar—the _Avatar_, who was here to take her pick of anyone she wanted, so she could learn all the Earthbending there was to learn.

Toph was going to have serious trouble not punching this girl in the face.

"I hope so," Mama said, and brushed the backs of her fingers along Toph's cheek. "Enyu will be up soon help you pick out one of your better dresses, and you must be on your best behavior at supper, all right?"

"Yes, Mama," Toph said. It wasn't nearly as hard as Mama thought it was—Toph couldn't see, fine, but she could still feel the embroidery, and no two of her dresses were quite the same. But Enyu was nice and funny, and she never did anything for Toph if she knew Toph could do it herself.

"Thank you," Mama said, and kissed the top of Toph's head. "I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too, Mama," Toph said, because despite everything Mama didn't understand, it was still the truth.

.*.*.*.

Yue had had a point: it _was_ nice to be clean. They hadn't been anywhere with baths—baths with warm water, at that—in far too long.

But once she was dry and dressed, the whole thing started to make Katara kind of nervous. Yue had been right about the other half, too: it was a very fine house, and it was only a spare guest house. Surely the Bei Fong home itself was even finer, and all the clothes Katara had were everyday things—everyday things that had been stuffed in her pack for months, at that.

Aang had wandered outside while the rest of them were busy, poking through the gardens or something; but when she went to the door and hissed his name as loud as she dared, he came zipping over the paths. "You're the Avatar," he said, when she picked at her shirt and made a face. "I think they'll probably forgive you if you splash your soup a little."

The haughty guard came back to lead them to the main building, when it was time; and he didn't precisely smile at them, but he looked noticeably less disapproving, which Katara chose to take as a good sign.

A servant led them from the front door through a dizzying array of hallways and seated them at the table, in a large hall with a fine stone floor. No doubt the rest of the room was lovely; but Katara didn't remember a single thing about it later, because when she looked across the table, the girl who was sitting there was the girl from the swamp.

It was undoubtedly the same girl. Her hair was the same, and so was her dress—which looked like a much more reasonable choice in a noble family's house than it had in the middle of a swamp.

It took Sokka's elbow in Katara's ribs for her to realize the introductions had already started. "Sorry, I—I'm Katara," she blurted, and then winced.

The Bei Fongs didn't seem to mind, though. "A Southern Tribe name?" the woman—Poppy, Katara thought—said. "It's very pretty."

"Um, thank you," Katara said.

She didn't want to be any more impolite if she could help it, so she waited until the pleasantries were over and the meal was halfway finished before she broached the subject of Earthbending teachers. "If you don't mind, I'm hoping to find a master—"

"—Earthbender, yes," Poppy said, and smiled when Katara stared at her. "Word travels quickly in the city. We have found no better teacher in Gaoling than Master Yu."

Sokka, halfway through a chunk of rice, began to cough, and Suki whacked him helpfully on the back a couple times; Katara barely managed not to grimace. "Is that so," she said, as noncommittally as possible.

"Oh, yes," said Lao Bei Fong, nodding. "He is a very respectable man—well-mannered and refined. His methods are quite civilized; he concentrates heavily on the classical forms."

"He teaches our Toph," Poppy added, reaching over to lay a hand over the wrist of the girl from the swamp. "Only the basics, of course, she _is_ blind, but he handles her difficulty marvelously. We were so nervous at first, thinking she might get hurt, but he's done very well with her."

"She—oh," Katara said. She hadn't realized it until that exact moment—Toph's eyes were unusually light, she'd seen that, but Toph had served herself, and she aimed her chopsticks unerringly.

"Hasn't he, dear?" Poppy said.

"Oh, yes, he's the best teacher ever," Toph said. It sounded very sincere, and Poppy smiled and patted Toph's hand; but Katara kept looking after Poppy had turned back to her bowl, and she could see the way Toph's mouth quirked at one corner. Not quite the right expression to match the cheerful enthusiasm that had been in her voice.

Maybe there was something behind all Master Yu's endless bragging—or maybe there wasn't. If she could just talk to Toph by herself when her parents weren't around, she'd probably be able to find out, though. And maybe Toph would know who she ought to find instead; maybe that was why the swamp had shown her to Katara.

"Wonderful," Katara said. "Thank you so much for your help."

.*.

Supper truly was excellent, and Katara was careful to thank the Bei Fongs properly—until Aang suddenly said, "Hey—she's gone!"

"It was wonderful," Katara said to Poppy Bei Fong, "really," and then stood and took a quick look around.

He was right: Toph had slipped out somehow, and Katara had no idea which way she'd gone.

Yue, beside her, was giving her sort of a funny look, so she made herself say thank you a few more times for good measure, and waited until they were back outside to explain.

"I _thought_ you were giving her a funny look at the beginning," Sokka said. "So she's your swamp vision, huh?"

"It was definitely her," Katara said. "I'm still not sure why, but I think maybe—maybe she's supposed to help me find my Earthbending teacher. I just need to talk to her."

"Well, you're going to have to find her first," Suki said.

"Send the dead guy," Sokka suggested. "He could find out where her room is—"

"... Are we in so much of a hurry that we need to break into her room at night?" Yue said.

Katara didn't think they were, and she was about to say as much when Aang, drifting a few feet above them, suddenly slowed and said, "Wait—there's somebody over there."

So she said, "Hang on a second; everybody be quiet," instead, and they waited in the shadows barely ten paces from the guest house while he drifted up to peer over the nearest row of trees.

"It's her," he said almost immediately, head halfway through a tree branch.

"Toph?" Katara whispered. "What's she doing?"

"Wait, the girl? Where?" Sokka said.

"I don't know," Aang said, "she's heading toward the wall. Maybe to the gardens? Maybe you could talk to her there."

But when they hurried through the neatly-kept trees and around the corner of another building, they had to stop, because Toph hadn't turned toward the bridge that led to the estate gardens. She was wearing different clothes, now, nothing like the pale gown she'd had on at supper, and she was barefoot; and when she was barely a step from the wall, she made a sharp sideways movement with her hand.

The stones of the wall cracked aside like a door opening, smoother and more graceful than anything the Earthbenders at Lingsao had done, and Toph stepped through without even breaking her stride. A moment later, it closed again behind her, and there was no sign she'd been there at all except the flattened grass her feet had left behind.

"Did that look like 'only the basics' to you?" Sokka said. "Because that's not what I'd have called it."


	12. The Champion of Gaoling, Part 2

Katara didn't want to go out through the gate, not when the only reason why was to follow Toph somewhere she evidently wasn't supposed to be going; but she couldn't exactly open the wall, either. Fortunately, there was a convenient statue beside an even more convenient tree in the gardens, and they managed to climb over and drop off the other side of the wall with a minimum of injury. Except for Suki, of course, who simply did a flip off the top and landed easily on her feet.

Aang sped ahead, as unimpeded by physical obstacles as always—and it was a good thing, too, because otherwise they might have lost Toph entirely. It quickly became obvious that she was heading back into the city, out of the noble district and into the lower quarters where there were lanterns lit all night long. The route she took was winding, but Aang never lost track of her.

The arena they came to wasn't exactly refined—nothing like the Bei Fongs' fine quiet estate and gardens. The lower districts were loud even at night, the buildings small and packed tightly together; but they were also home to the Earthbending competitions they'd seen flyers for in the streets earlier. The arena was clearly meant to hold one such tournament. It had been hollowed out of the earth, rather than built up from it, and there was a low wall around it with a gate for an entrance.

The burly fellow at the gate demanded a coin from each of them before he would let them pass, and they came in just as someone landed a blow; the crowd crammed into the arena let out a deafening cheer. There were seats, in a sense—wide benches cut out of the rock—and nearly all of them were full.

"Do you see her anywhere?" Katara shouted over the noise, as the woman in the ring sent another chunk of rock flying at her opponent. Katara didn't know for sure, but somehow she doubted the competitors were making much use of Master Yu's "classical forms".

Suki and Yue both shook their heads, though they were still scanning the width of the arena; but Sokka, staring at the ring, nodded.

Katara frowned at him, and then followed his gaze. Toph wasn't in the ring—but she was next to it, standing quietly in the small space nearby where the competitors waited to be called up, a good foot shorter than anyone else in there.

Yue and Suki followed their glances. "She's fighting," Yue said, and smiled.

.*.

She was so small, hardly older than Aang, but the crowd had clearly seen her before, and she got as many cheers just for walking out into the competition ring as the man before her had gotten for winning his round.

"How often do you think she does this?" Suki said.

Katara shook her head in reply, because she had no idea; but it had to be pretty often.

Toph was facing off against a man who had to be at least twice her size, but she didn't seem nervous at all—not that Katara could see her face from here, but she looked comfortable in her stance, not tense or tightly strung. The man was yelling, a gloat or a boast; Toph shouted something right back, though Katara couldn't hear it over the sound of the crowd, and then the man at the side of the ring signaled with a jab of his hand.

The big man moved first, but Toph didn't seem to be trying to beat him there—he turned and clenched his fist to raise a giant hunk of rock up behind him, and Toph didn't move at all. She just stood there, waiting, with her bare feet flat against the stone platform and her head cocked.

"Man, he is going to squish her," Sokka said.

The man lifted the rock over his head, shoulders bunching with the effort, and slammed a foot to the ground to brace himself for the throw—and only then did Toph move, sliding a hand and a foot forward and across in an almost flippant little turn.

Stone shifted, and just as the man's balance was tipping, one of his feet went suddenly sideways; he stumbled, and the rock he had been lifting tumbled from his hands and crashed to the ring.

It was a perfect opening, and Toph was ready for it: she punched out sharply, arm and shoulder and back all perfectly aligned, and the chunk of rock slammed back into the big man, hard enough to shove him backward out of the ring marked on the stone.

"... Or not," Sokka said.

"She's it," Aang said, rapt, and Katara managed to tear her eyes away from the ring long enough to look at him. "She's the one—don't you remember what Bumi said? Neutral jing."

"Waiting for the moment," Katara murmured. "Listening to the earth." Of course—she had waited, and how had she known where to aim so that the man's foot would go awry? She had heard him slam it down, felt it through the stone floor. She had listened to the earth.

Toph wasn't going to help Katara find the right person. She _was_ the right person.

* * *

><p>"But why are we following her?" Li hissed at his uncle, like he thought he was being subtle.<p>

"Look," Tashi said, glancing over her shoulder, "the village is right up here. Literally over the hill. Just come that far, and you'll see it."

Li glared at her, and she glared right back. She meant the glare less than she might have another time, but the prison ship was gone and her mother was back; everything was so much better than it had been even half a year ago.

Still, this boy was incredibly annoying.

But his uncle set a hand on his shoulder; he shrugged it off, but he kept walking, if grudgingly. Tashi didn't think she had ever seen anyone walk grudgingly before, but Li was definitely managing it.

They came to the little rise at the edge of the forest, and Tashi pointed down at the village. "There, see," she said. "I haven't led you to your deaths, not even a little."

"And we appreciate it very much," Mushi said gravely.

"There could still be an ambush waiting in the street down there," Li muttered.

Tashi rolled her eyes.

It wasn't difficult to get them settled; in the time since the Earthbenders from the prison ship had been retrieved, they'd fashioned a fortress of a village hall in the main market square. They weren't going to lose this place to the Fire Nation ever again. People gathered there often in the evenings, to eat together and tell stories and that sort of thing, and there had been refugees from the north before who had spent the night there.

They tied the ostrich horses up outside, and once he had food in his hands, Li relaxed. The smallest possible amount, perhaps; but enough that Tashi caught the edge of something that might have been a smile once or twice. Haru told excellent stories, and Nayu's mother made soup so good you'd have to be made of stone to leave even a drop in your bowl.

When he'd loosened up enough to lean back against the wall, Tashi decided it was time to get them some mats—they had to be tired, after all that walking.

She fetched a pair from the store they kept, and set them down next to Li; and she was straightening back up when he caught her wrist. "Why are you doing this for us?" he said.

It sounded almost accusing, the way he said it, like he was expecting her to say that there were poisoned needles in the mats or something. "Because you need it done for you," she said, "and you can't do it for yourselves."

"We don't need your help," he said, clearly offended, "we could've—"

"I'd be impressed if you could make soup like that," Tashi said, "but that wasn't really what I meant. I meant a place to stay—a place to rest, where you know other people are around to help you." She hesitated. "I know what it's like not to have that," she added, "and I hated it." It had made her harsh and sharp-edged, not having Mother or Father or Shanmi, not having anyone but Nayu and the other kids who had been just as scared as Tashi. She dreamed about it sometimes—that the Avatar had never come to help them, and she had never seen Mother or Father again. She knew Nayu did, too, by the look in her eyes sometimes in the morning. "So take the mats," she said.

Li looked at her for a long moment, unfriendly, and then sighed; but he took them.

* * *

><p>Sokka didn't think Katara had exactly been planning to confront Toph so soon, especially not when they'd followed her without her knowing and she could evidently crush them like bugs. She hadn't just beaten the one guy; she'd also beaten all six of the competitors who had come after him, and walked away as champion, with the night's prize money.<p>

But there weren't any trees on this side of the wall, and bending a whole bunch of water from the river into giant frozen stairs or whatever wouldn't exactly be subtle. So when Toph bent the wall open, he could sort of understand why Katara dashed forward and said, "Wait!"

Toph turned and went into a stance, but didn't bend anything at them—that waiting and listening thing again, Sokka assumed.

"Just—wait a second," Katara said, hands raised defensively.

"You—you're the Avatar," Toph said; and she still sounded wary, but she didn't look ready to crack the ground open under them anymore.

"Yes, I am," Katara said. "And you're a master Earthbender."

"Wow, say it a little louder, will you?" Toph said. "Are you just stupid, or are you actually trying to get me in trouble?"

"In trouble?" Sokka said. "What, because you're an even better Earthbender than your parents think you are?"

"Uh, there's a reason I don't just dance out the front gates in my dinner gowns," Toph said. "And wait a minute, you _followed_ me?"

"... Yes?" Katara said.

Toph crossed her arms and made a face. "I can't believe you followed me—"

"Well, you should," Sokka said, "because we did."

"And I'm guessing you think there's a good reason why I shouldn't squish you right now and go back to bed," Toph said.

Katara looked at Sokka—yeah, right, like _he_ knew what to say—and then shrugged helplessly. "I need your help."

Toph raised an eyebrow. "You're not listening," she said, "it was supposed to be a _good_ reason."

"... Because it would make a mess?" Sokka suggested.

Toph snorted. "Look," she said, "I'm not going to do it, whatever it is. Unless you mean you want help getting back through the wall, in which case you should probably do it before I change my mind and shut it on you."

"Fair enough," Sokka said, and hurried through the gap.

When they were all inside, Toph closed the hole behind them with a sharp jerk of her hands, and then she turned around, cocking her head expectantly.

"Please," Katara said. "I need someone to teach me Earthbending. Someone good, someone who's really a master. We've already been to see Master Yu—we've already been to see half the city, and I'm pretty sure none of them are going to be able to help me."

Which was true, but Toph didn't seem swayed; she just shook her head. "All right," she said, "I get it: you're looking for a teacher, and, yeah, I'm totally awesome. But my parents are never going to let me do it—not if they don't know what I can do, and not if they know I've been lying to them for like two years. Which I think covers all the options there are."

"I know what it is like to be taught only what others think you are capable of learning," Yue said, "and what it is like to deceive them because you know how much they want to be right."

"Yeah, yeah, blah blah, you feel my pain," Toph said. "If you're here, then your parents aren't a thing like my parents. They freak out if I so much as get a splinter." She snorted. "They can't know. I'm definitely not telling them, and I'm definitely going to crush you if you do it. Best of luck finding somebody else, okay?"

Katara was biting her lip, and Yue had looked away; even Suki seemed uncertain. "Are you _kidding_ me?" Sokka said, because apparently no one else was going to. "You know Master Yu isn't going to cut it—obviously he's not good enough for you, or you wouldn't be sneaking down to fight in the lower districts all the time. But instead of helping the Avatar save the entire world, you're just going to go back to bed and wake up in the morning and pretend to be—quiet and demure and—and satisfied, when you're not any of those things at all? That's your plan for, what, the entire rest of your life?"

"I'm quiet sometimes," Toph protested, a little sulkily, and then sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I really am. But I can't."

"Wait," Katara said, but Toph was already moving—they had ended up next to the little stone bridge that arched into the gardens, and Toph leapt up onto the post at the end of the railing.

"Not happening," she said over her shoulder, and then ran along the rail; a spur of earth lifted her up at the edge of the garden, and she was through the window and had closed the shutters behind her before Katara had even crossed the bridge.

.*.*.*.

Katara felt sour and uncertain the next morning; her dreams had been tangled and rambling, like they didn't know what to do either. She had been so sure—it had to be Toph, it just _had_ to. But they couldn't make her come if she wouldn't agree. Katara had been spoiled by Suki and Yue, she thought ruefully; Suki had come without any arguing at all, and Yue had been willing to teach her right from the start, even if Pakku hadn't wanted her to.

But if Toph wouldn't do it, she wouldn't do it, and Katara had a feeling that nothing she could say would be convincing enough to change that.

She sighed, leaning heavily on the step behind her. She'd woken early, and the idea of more sleep hadn't been appealing. She could see the sunrise from the front steps of the guest house, but even that wasn't improving her mood as much as it usually did. Aang was hovering quietly around the roof; he gave her an uncertain look every few seconds, but he didn't seem to want to be the first to speak.

And he wasn't, in the end: it was Yue, who had come to the door sometime after Katara had turned her back to it. Katara didn't even realize she was there until she spoke. "We'll find a way."

"Oh—I didn't mean to wake you—"

Yue smiled. "You didn't," she said. "I left my shutters open, and the sunrise is very bright."

She crossed the porch with light steps, and sat down a stair above Katara, touching her shoulder gently. "We'll find a way," she repeated. "No matter what we have to do—find someone else here, or travel to the other side of the Earth Kingdoms."

Katara rubbed her hands across her face, trying not to sigh again. "I feel so terrible," she said at last, "making you all—making you go so far for me, when I don't even know what I'm doing half the time. Maybe I'm not supposed to be here at all, when I haven't finished with Waterbending."

Aang drifted a little lower, pink and violet clouds behind him contrasting with the sober blue lines of his face. "I—I know I'm not very good at this—" he began, hesitant.

"No!" Katara said instantly. "No, Aang, it's not your fault at all. I just—there's so much left to do, and there's so little time, and I keep going to the wrong places or—or saying the wrong things—"

"Why do you keep doing that?" Yue said.

"... What?"

"Why do you keep saying 'I'?" Yue elaborated. "Granted, you are the only Avatar currently alive in the world—begging your pardon, Avatar Aang," she added, inclining her head respectfully to the air in front of her. "But that doesn't mean you act alone. I did not come with you because I could not refuse an Avatar's request, or because I wished the world to know I was your teacher; I came because I wanted to help you. We aren't waddling along behind you like baby penguin seals, Katara. There is a difference between making the wrong choice, or the stupid choice, and having no way to know which choice is right; one of those, no one in the world can handle perfectly, and the other, well. I think you must trust us to object if we see a need." Yue's mouth quirked. "Unless you think we are too cowed by your powers of glowing to manage it."

Katara snorted. "I worry about a lot of things," she said, "but I can't say that's one of them."

Yue grinned. "But it is true that you are not finished with Waterbending," she said, clapping her hands together briskly. "There will always be more to learn; but perhaps the balance of the elemental cycle can be preserved by a reasonable effort. And look, there is a pool right beside the house."

They took a break when a pair of servants brought trays of rice porridge for breakfast, but Katara barely tasted it; despite Yue's reassurances, she still wasn't looking forward to another day of wandering Gaoling's Earthbending schools looking for something she was pretty sure she'd already found. The comet was still coming, though, and she couldn't afford to wait to see whether Toph might change her mind.

But they had only just finished scraping their bowls clean when the haughty guard knocked on the door.

"Yes?" Katara said.

"The Bei Fongs invite you to attend an exhibition this morning, honored Avatar." He bowed. "A display of Earthbending skill by their daughter—trained, as you know, by Master Yu. They would be very grateful for your presence."

Katara felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned; it was Suki, looking at her sympathetically. "It couldn't hurt," she said. "Maybe you'll get a chance to talk to her again—or maybe Master Yu will turn out to be a better choice than we thought."

"All right," Katara said, and turned back to the guard. "Where will it be?"

.*.

The gardens, was the answer, and the haughty guard led them back and over the bridge, to a little shaded space beneath a stand of poplar trees. There were curving stone benches there; Lao and Poppy Bei Fong were already seated, smiling indulgently, and Toph was standing in front of them, back in one of her gowns, with Master Yu to the side.

"Ah, Avatar," Lao said, and stood so that he could bow fully. "So good of you to come on such short notice. Please, sit."

Master Yu was smiling at her, and the expression was confiding, like they shared a secret; Katara abruptly remembered what Yue had told him to get them out of his school, and tried not to grimace. Clearly he thought this exhibition was only going to make her more eager to be his student.

Which was completely untrue: it did almost exactly the opposite. Toph was excellent at the moves, of course, but her motions were purely functional—every single thing she did looked like something she'd practiced a thousand times and was bored to tears with, and Katara had no idea how her parents couldn't tell.

Then again, Katara thought, they had apparently never seen Toph flippant and smug in an arena while benders twice her size limped away groaning, so they didn't have much basis for comparison.

Toph finished a sequence, a fist-sized stone shifting in patterns around her feet, and her parents clapped effusively. "Excellent, Toph," Master Yu said. "Shall we try fifth sequence? We've been working very hard these past few weeks," he told her parents, "and I think she might just be ready."

He turned back to Toph, but she hadn't moved; she was standing there, lips pursed thoughtfully, head tilted.

"Toph?" Poppy said, after a moment. "Toph, dear, if you aren't sure you can do it—"

Toph turned her head, until she was facing approximately Sokka's direction. "You know what?" she said. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're right."

"... I am?" Sokka said.

"You are," Toph said. "This is _totally_ stupid. Mama, I'm sure I can do it—I could do it in my sleep, and I probably have, because Master Yu is so boring I'm surprised he hasn't caught me yawning yet."

"_Toph_," Poppy said, aghast.

"Master Yu, I hope you will forgive my daughter," Lao said, "she is clearly overtired—"

"I am not," Toph said. "I'm not overtired, I don't need forgiving, and Master Yu hasn't taught me anything in years. I've learned more from the arenas in the lower city than I ever have from him."

"The arenas?" Lao said faintly. "The _arenas_—"

"Toph," Poppy said, "Toph, whatever do you mean? Surely you haven't been going to the lower city alone?"

"Yeah," Toph said, "I have, because only an idiot would try to jump me. Mama, I'm better than you think I am—I'm good, I'm _great_. The Avatar's not here for Master Yu; she's here for me, because she asked me to teach her last night and I said no."

Katara wanted to say something, but she had no idea what, and it probably wouldn't have made it out; the sheer force of her sudden hope had made her throat go tight.

And Poppy Bei Fong wouldn't have listened anyway. She was staring at her daughter, nearly as pale as her pearl-shaded robes, and something almost like hurt was stealing over her face. "Toph," she said again, helplessly, and shook her head. "Why—why would you do this to us? We've only ever wanted to take care of you—we knew when you were born, when they told us you were blind, we accepted the responsibility—"

"And that was so very _kind_ of you, Mama," Toph said, bitter, "so noble; it must have been so hard to take up that awful burden—"

"Don't speak to your mother that way," Lao said sharply. "You need help and protection. You always will."

"We only want you to be safe, Toph," Poppy said, and Katara noticed uncomfortably that her eyes were wet. "We're only keeping you safe. We love you."

"You don't even know who I am," Toph said.

Lao stood up, chin tilted imperiously, and looked down at his daughter. "We know who you absolutely are not," he said loudly. "You are _not_ an arena champion, not after today; and you are not the Avatar's teacher. If you ever Earthbend again, it will be under Master Yu's supervision, and it will be months from now—if not years—when you have regained our trust. You will not leave these grounds again."

Toph blew out a breath, slowly. "No, Baba," she said, and now she sounded more tired than angry. "That's not going to happen. I'm going now."

* * *

><p>Zuko adjusted his ostrich horse's saddle again, just to be sure. They were not quite ready to go yet—Uncle was always so slow in the mornings, even when he had not wandered away from his packing to buy more tea—but he was too restless to simply sit and think.<p>

It _had_ been pleasant, to sleep in the hall last night, but surely Tashi was wrong. Surely the sense of comfort he had felt had come from his awareness that the people around them had all been thoroughly duped by Uncle's feeble lies—that would give anyone a feeling of satisfaction. Or perhaps a combination: their presence had contented him because he knew they would protect the pathetic Earth Kingdom refugee they thought he was.

Yes, that was reasonable. That was logical. That was not weakness.

He cinched the saddle a little tighter, and his ostrich horse squawked in protest. "Sorry," he muttered, and loosened it again. He needed to stop thinking about these things so hard.

"Hey!" someone shouted across the street, and he looked up to see Haru, sprinting toward the fortress-hall. "Fire Nation, on mongoose dragons!"

Haru was yelling to Nayu, obviously; she was down the street a little way with Uncle. But mongoose dragons—Azula had always favored mongoose dragons for their speed.

Zuko felt suddenly as though he had swallowed a chunk of ice, but morbid curiosity drew him along in Nayu's wake. If Azula really was here now, and managed to kill everyone, it wouldn't matter where he was standing—he'd be just as dead anywhere.

The second he turned the corner and came up alongside the fortress-hall, he knew it really was her, even though he only saw her for a moment—because a giant rock blocked his view almost immediately. Nayu's mother had thrown it; she was at the middle of a line of benders, perhaps fifteen across, and there were several more lines behind them.

Azula dodged it, of course, but she had to yank her mongoose dragon aside sharply to do it. More rocks were already flying toward her, so many that he could barely see the other dragons alongside her.

"Don't worry," Tashi said, and he turned—she had come up behind him on her way to help, and had paused.

"Worry?" he said. He wasn't worried—what a stupid thing to say.

But she didn't understand. "It's okay," she said, and touched his shoulder. "We do this a lot—we weren't prepared the first time, but we've learned—" She paused. "We've been taught better."

There was a spray of blue flame, and a scorched stone rolled past them, redirected by the blast of fire. But Tashi didn't look afraid. She grinned at Zuko, half a smile and half a baring of teeth, and pushed back with her hands; and the boulder shuddered to a halt beside her like a well-trained pet.

"Just give us a few minutes," Tashi said, and then punched the boulder up off the ground, into the air ahead of her, and ran for the square.

.*.*.*.

This was somewhat more trouble than they'd expected, Mai thought, ducking under a stone before it could crack her skull and hurling three small knives at the bender who had thrown it. It was noisy, with the thudding of rock and the crackling of fire, but Mai knew what the satisfying thunk of a hit landing sounded like. Plus there was the scream of pain after. She probably hadn't killed him—there were too many things moving around in the air for her knives to stay perfectly on target—but she'd bet he wouldn't be bending any more things at her head.

She took the opportunity to glance along their line—such as it was. There were only four of them, after all, and Ty Lee didn't really stay in formation so much as do flips above it.

Samnang could Firebend a little, but he had never been very good at it—that was half the reason Azula had taken him into their little group in the first place, even though he was nothing but a teacher's son. She had never been able to lord her bending over Mai and Ty Lee, not properly, because they couldn't bend at all; but she had always been able come out of her bending lessons confident that she knew yet another move Samnang had never heard of. But right now, Mai thought, he probably regretted that. A glaive was less than useless when you couldn't get close enough to your enemy to use it.

But Azula was bending enough for two, great blooms of blue flame that sent boulders tumbling away from her. She was angry, Mai could see the scowl on her face from here—but sooner or later, she'd realize that even the four of them couldn't beat fifty Earthbenders with a grudge.

Until then, though, they had to hang on. Ty Lee vaulted over a rock, and Mai slung a few darts at the Earthbender she was cartwheeling toward. One missed, but two of them caught the woman's arm, and she grimaced and grabbed for her elbow, leaving a perfect opening for Ty Lee to tap her hip and send her tumbling to the ground.

"Azula," Samnang shouted, and Mai turned: he was looking to the side, where a group of Earthbenders had raised a wall. There was another on the other side; and if they let the Earth villagers get behind them, they were going to get boxed in.

Azula saw it, too, and her forehead creased with annoyance. She might have been angry, but she wasn't stupid, and she knew what that meant. "Back to the woods," she said tightly, and swept out a whip of blue fire, deflecting the nearest volley of rocks.

Ty Lee had to make a couple leaps to get back to her mongoose dragon, but Mai was only about two steps from hers, and she swung onto the saddle and sent three more darts flying in the same move. Rage worked for Azula, but Mai had never found it useful. Her philosophy was simple. Don't get angry; just throw more knives.

The Earthbenders weren't exactly charitable, but they didn't seem terribly bloodthirsty either, and it wasn't hard to withdraw back to the trees; Mai got a minor slice from a flying shard of rock, and a boulder nearly crushed her mongoose dragon's tail, but they made it in the end.

It would take time to go around the village—no doubt they'd keep a close watch on the nearby hills, and they'd probably attack anybody on a mongoose dragon. So Mai was braced for Azula to be in something of a mood when they made it back to their camp; but when Azula swung down off her mongoose dragon's back, she was smiling.

"We'll find them, Azula, I know we will," Ty Lee said, tone reassuring.

"Of course we will," Azula said, and favored Ty Lee with a grin. "They will not elude us forever."

They had bought a messenger hawk along with the mongoose dragons, in case they should need to send word for some reason; the bird was well-trained, waiting quietly on the perch it was hobbled to, and Azula strode over and freed it, lifting it to one well-armored shoulder.

"And when we find them," she continued, yanking a scroll and a brush from her pack, "we will be prepared."

"We don't know where they're going," Mai pointed out.

Azula paused halfway through the message to glance over her shoulder. "I think I have a fairly good idea," she said, smug. "They have come south this far, but they appear to be turning to the east—and if you seek to evade the reach of the Fire Lord, even in the Earth Kingdoms you will have limited choices." She shook her head a little, sighing. "Uncle is becoming predictable in his old age."

Mai eyed her. A reference to the Dragon of the West, and a place in the eastern Kingdoms where the Fire Lord's influence had never spread—that meant only one thing. Azula had told them so little—it was her habit, Mai knew, to reserve all information until it could do her good, and it was sensible, but it meant that Mai still wasn't entirely sure what they were doing. Tracking General Iroh and Zuko, certainly; hoping to return them to the Fire Nation, very likely; but for what purpose, Azula had not explained.

Still, Mai somehow doubted that she had begun with the intention of invading Ba Sing Se.

"Princess," Samnang said cautiously, "what exactly do you intend?"

"One stone, two birds," Azula said, grinning, and rolled up the scroll. "I will not fail."

Mai nearly smiled. People said a great many things about Azula, some more true than others; but above all else, Mai thought, she was certainly never boring.

* * *

><p>Toph bowed stiffly to her parents, and strode away across the grass, barefoot; she reached the edge of the garden, about where she had last night, and called another column of rock to lift herself up to her window. The moment the shutters closed behind her, Suki stood up and yanked at Sokka's shoulder. The Bei Fongs were still in shock, now, watching their daughter march away, but it probably wouldn't last long, and they did seem to employ an awful lot of guards.<p>

Sokka glanced up at her face, and then visibly caught on, and elbowed Katara.

"I—um, I apologize," Katara said, impossibly awkward in breaking the silence Toph had left behind; and she bowed like that would make up for it.

Well, Suki thought, it was Katara. Of course she was going to try.

Lao Bei Fong was staring at his daughter's window, expression slowly darkening; but Poppy, still seated, had been gazing helplessly at the open ground beneath the poplars, and her eyes drifted to Katara like she had forgotten Katara was even there. "Of—of course," she said, dazed.

Lao straightened his shoulders. "She won't do it," he said. "She can't."

Suki glanced at him. Toph made up her own mind, Suki had seen that after five minutes; you could argue with her, you could lay things out for her any way you liked, but she picked what she was going to listen to, and she decided whether she was going to act on it, and there was nothing you could do about that. Surely he wasn't so foolish as to think she hadn't meant it, or that she would be too afraid.

Perhaps he just couldn't bear to admit otherwise.

"I'm sorry," Katara said again, helplessly. There was something awful about it, Lao standing there hard-faced and staring and Poppy bewildered on the bench beside him; it was a guilty relief to turn and hurry away.

.*.

Their things hadn't been more than half unpacked, since they hadn't had to cook for themselves; so it didn't take long to get everything back in its place. Katara had Aang stay just outside the door and watch for Toph, but she hadn't shown by the time they were finished, so Katara and Aang snuck off to see where she might be.

When they were gone, Sokka sighed, loud and breathy, and kicked a little at the ground.

"What?" Suki said.

"I can't believe we're going to end up with _another_ girl," Sokka said, throwing up his hands. "I can't handle this kind of isolation! Why is it always girls?"

"You were three to one before," Suki said dubiously. "Is four to one really that much worse?"

"I was two to one to sister," Sokka said, "Katara doesn't count."

Suki patted him on the shoulder. "You aren't entirely alone."

"Yeah, right," Sokka said, rolling his eyes.

Suki shrugged. "You aren't—there's Aang. Technically, he makes two."

"He doesn't count either, he's _dead_!"

"Are you always this loud?" Toph said, hurrying up the path; Katara, Suki saw, was beside her, and presumably Aang was drifting around somewhere.

"Often," Suki said, before Sokka could reply. "But not always," she added, when Sokka glared at her.

"Okay, well, try to keep a lid on it," Toph said. "My parents aren't going to let this go; we have to get out of here before they get the guards moving."

"But the gate—" Sokka began.

Toph's expression went flat, and she pursed her lips; she planted her feet, lined up her hands, and heaved to the side, and the wall right behind the guest house slid open with a rumble.

"... Or we could go that way," Sokka said.


	13. The Desert, Part 1

I hope everyone who celebrates anything this time of year has had/is having a lovely holiday! Thank you again to those who've faved/followed since the last chapter; and please do always feel free to ask questions, via either review (if you want to stay anonymous) or PM. The Turkic names in Part 2 of this chapter may sound a bit out of place, but their use is intentional: they're Uyghur names, as best I was able to determine, and therefore entirely appropriate for a setting based on East Asia. Anyway, on to the chapter! (For those of you who really love the Library of Wan Shi Tong: um, sorry. It may still show up "onscreen" later?)

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: The Desert<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>Despite being handed an opportunity to test Mizan, to push her and prod her and see how quickly or slowly she might snap, the pirates were relatively polite; even Tan Khai, the angry woman who liked Mizan the least, listened to her, if grudgingly.<p>

The first order of business, of course, was to determine how her Firebenders would be divided—and, in turn, whose sailors would be put under her command to make up for the lack. She willingly described her soldiers' strengths and weaknesses, and even Tan Khai was attentive.

"You know them better than I," Tan Khai said, when Mizan asked her why. "And there is no other choice—your words are better than nothing, Fire Nation, even if they are only hot air."

"You expend the effort to be clever with me," Mizan observed, trying not to laugh. "How gracious."

Tan Khai eyed her. "I have not cut your throat," she said. "_That_ is graciousness."

"And what about her?" said Bui, who was the captain who had brought her in; he was looking at Isani, who had stood throughout the discussion, silently looming at Mizan's shoulder.

"If I am to sail with you," Mizan said, "I'll need to keep at least one—or how will I reply to the signals you'll have my soldiers sending?" She shook her head. "She stays with me."

It was simpler than she had been expecting, for her sailors to be replaced with pirates; she anticipated considerable grumbling, and perhaps protests that none could be spared. But a Firebender to each ship meant a single sailor from it, so no one ship had to suffer a whole crew being split apart. She thought it likely that she was acquiring a collection of the least valued—but her own crew had been made up of such when they had first been exiled, and she had managed well enough.

The rest was more difficult.

"A supply route?" Bui said doubtfully. "You are certain?"

Mizan tried not to grind her teeth. At least, not audibly. "We were exiles, not fools. We have sailed the seas near Port Tsao several times over; we have seen the ships ourselves."

Chen Ma Yun, a woman with a thin, dour face, sneered down at Mizan's chart. "Supply ships. Valorous," she said.

"Sensible," Mizan replied. "I am the only Fire Nation vessel you have; if you try to tell me you do not take heavy losses when you attack their war fleets, I will not believe you." She glanced around the table pointedly; the silence remained unbroken. "Devastating an army's supply line may be less emotionally satisfying, but it is far more feasible, and I suspect it will do more damage than your boats have ever done to a battleship."

"Are you always so disdainful of new allies?" Tan Khai said.

"I do not disdain you; I disdain your ships." Mizan let herself sneer, just a little. "Are pirates always so easily offended?"

"You have called them flat-bellied and lubberly yourself, a time or two," said Jaoshing, from further down the table; he was an older man, and had mostly stayed quiet, but now he was looking at Tan Khai with his eyebrows raised, visibly amused.

Tan Khai huffed out a breath and leaned back in her chair. "When they are mine," she said, "I am allowed."

The small joke eased the whole table; it felt like a breath, held in far too long, had been released.

"The supply route you insist is there," Jaoshing said. "How precise can you be?"

* * *

><p>The docks on the coast near Omashu had been somewhat haphazardly put together—Earthbenders, Yin thought, probably could have done much better with stone, but flame couldn't be used to build all by itself. Although it was easy for Firebenders to weld thoroughly, so they probably weren't quite as rickety as they looked.<p>

Still, she found herself holding her breath a little when the first battalion of soldiers stepped from the flagship's hold to the dock. But no splashing followed the clang of boots on metal, and Yin let herself exhale.

"Sir?"

Yin turned. Not Kishen—nor even Chan Dan. Nusha, this time, a plump pale woman from the north.

She still wasn't quite used to the regular company of her squadron commanders. The fleet's organization had been exceptionally lax on their return from the north, with easily half the officers dead or injured, and Yin had usually had her orders issued to the rest of the ships with fire signals anyone on deck could see. She had conferred with no one but Kishen for so long.

But now that they'd been formally reinforced, she was surrounded by a bevy of captains and division commanders and who knew what else. Kishen was one of the division commanders now, promoted by the officials in Phnan Chnang—it was probably in poor taste to keep him closer than her squadron commanders, but they were still bound together by the secret of the Avatar's escape from Jindao, and she had come to trust his advice besides.

All her endeavors to avoid Zhao's legacy, she thought wryly, and she was already more prone to favoritism than he had ever been. At least he had been equally disdainful of everyone.

"Yes, Commander?" Yin said.

Nusha bowed. "Sir, the lieutenant general in charge of the area troops requests a meeting. His messenger indicates that he has orders to pass along from General Jingzan. He's waiting on deck."

General Jingzan—she was the regional commander. She must have been told that Yin was coming, and passed her orders along so they would be waiting when Yin arrived.

"Very well," Yin said, and then hesitated. She could get formal about it, but that meant loading up the scarily impressive admiral's tent and dragging along a dozen soldiers to set it up. The lieutenant general must have sent his messenger off the moment their ships had been spotted on the horizon, if the fellow had made it here already, which implied something of a hurry. "Fifteen minutes," she told Nusha, "and I'll be ready to ride back with him."

Nusha looked at her, steady and considering. "The man has no ostrich horse," she said. "He ran."

Yin blinked. That must have been an uncomfortable trip. She glanced through the window at the side of the bridge; she could only see him from the elbows up, but it looked like he was wearing nearly full armor. Just how beleaguered were they, if they couldn't spare an ostrich horse, or travel through the foothills without wearing armor?

"Give him one of the relief mounts, then," she said, "and tell him: fifteen minutes." She glanced out the window again. "And have somebody bring him some water."

"As you say, Admiral," Nusha said, and bowed again.

* * *

><p>They had to get out of Gaoling as quickly as possible, and with Toph along, they had been able to head right into the mountains—not that they couldn't have without her, but it would have been much harder. They had avoided the most straightforward routes, and Toph had been invaluable, clearing fallen rocks out of the way, or lifting them up outcroppings so they wouldn't have to stop and find a way around.<p>

Katara _hated_ her.

Earthbending was the only thing Toph would do for anybody but herself. In every other way—in ways Katara would never even have _thought_ of before this—she was so unhelpful it made Katara want to scream. Katara had tried to be thoughtful; she'd figured she would give Toph the easiest tasks when it came time to set up camp, since Toph had probably never done anything like it before. But Toph had categorically refused to lift a finger to help out, all the way up one side of the mountains and down the other. She could make a tent for herself with two jabs of her hands, and everybody else could fend for themselves. It was so ridiculous Katara could barely even argue with it properly—it was like trying to scold somebody for putting their shoes on their face, for punching you to say hello instead of bowing. Where did you even start?

But she was going to find a way soon—that or her head would explode. Suki had convinced her to let it go while they were in the mountains; they were in a hurry, and Toph was doing a lot for them even if she wouldn't boil water or lay out mats. But they were in the foothills now, the last descent before they hit the great beige blur that marked the Si Wong Desert on the map; the hurry and the obstacles were both mostly past, and Katara's patience was just about gone entirely.

It had been so easy, before—maybe too easy, in retrospect. Suki had slotted into place like Katara and Sokka had known her all their lives, and Yue was so polite and forgiving that even if she'd hated them, she would have made it work. Toph was nothing like that at all. Katara had caught herself thinking at least twice that she'd have been willing to double back, to scale the outcroppings with hands and feet, to climb around the remains of rockslides, if only she hadn't had to do it with _Toph_.

"Hey, whoa, you look like you're about to punch something."

Katara glanced at Sokka, and then realized she had gritted her teeth; her jaw was aching. Aang, drifting easily ahead of her even though his back was to the path, was looking at her sort of doubtfully.

She made herself relax. "Sorry," she said, deliberate in the cheerfulness of her tone. "Just thinking."

Suki looked at her, and then ahead at Toph, and so did Yue; but Toph thumped on ahead of them, utterly oblivious.

And that, that was another thing—she was so _loud_, she walked like a komodo rhino in a bad temper. Sure, fine, not everybody had learned to walk surrounded by snow and ice, where a heavy step meant a hard fall or an abrupt soaking; but she was practically shaking the ground, like she was trying to pound in nails with her feet—

"O-kay," Sokka said loudly, "I think it's time for a break." They were on the beginnings of an actual road now, shimmering with heat ahead of them where it bent close to the Si Wong, and Sokka squinted ahead at a sign by the nearest cross-path. "Misty Palms Oasis, anyone?"

"Seriously?" Toph said.

Was she kidding? Maybe they hadn't been walking that long, but it was already hot, and it was only going to get worse—Toph couldn't see the maps, but they'd _told_ her there was a desert ahead of them, after the little strip of grasslands by the mountains. She knew, even if she was acting like she didn't. Like she was so much better than they were, just because she could walk longer—

"I believe I could use a drink," Yue said, diplomatic. "We will be quick."

Toph shrugged one shoulder. "Okay, fine," she said.

The _nerve_—like it was up to her! Katara had to actually bite her lip to keep from saying it, and took a step instead. A break. That would be good. Toph could go one way, and Katara could go the other way, and they could just not be around each other for a while.

.*.*.*.

Misty Palms Oasis, as it turned out, wasn't very misty, or very palmy—or even very oasisy. Sokka figured it probably had been at some point; but now it was mostly sand, a lot of grumpy-looking people, and some dusty buildings that looked like they wanted to get out of the heat just as much as he did.

But apparently there was still a spring left somewhere, because one of the dusty buildings sold cool drinks, with tables to sit at, and handfuls of wilting and depressed fruit in little bowls as a side.

"... Thank you," Sokka said to the storekeeper, when he had his cup and bowl in hand; but he couldn't help staring into them doubtfully. That wasn't even a plum anymore—that was a prune pretending. Badly.

"At least we can be pretty sure they haven't rotted," Suki said to him brightly, lifting a wizened peach out of her own bowl with a flourish.

"No," Sokka agreed, "that would take moisture."

But the drinks _were_ pretty cold, somehow; and Katara and Yue took turns freezing them over with a slim film of ice to keep them that way. "Excellent," Yue kept saying when Katara pulled off the smooth little tug of fingers, and Katara was laughing and smiling and not grinding her teeth at all, which was a nice change.

Sokka saw what was going to happen a second before it did—not fast enough to do anything, but fast enough to be grimacing already, even before Toph said, "Hey!" loudly.

"What is it _now_?" Katara said, and her good mood was gone like—well, like the moisture from Sokka's prune.

Toph had been the last of them in line, which should have meant she'd get her drink next. But there was a man at the counter, a pretty short guy with kind of knobbly elbows; and judging by the way Toph was standing a foot back and rubbing her shoulder, he'd used one of them to knock her out of the line.

"I think that actually wasn't her fault," Sokka said, a second before Toph skidded a foot forward across the dirt floor—and the earth under the man's feet rumbled sideways, shoving him off-balance and away from the counter. "... Well, that part sort of was, but—"

Katara wasn't listening, he saw; she'd already clenched up her jaw again, and she let out a sharp breath through her nose.

But Yue was already up and halfway across the room, a smile firmly pasted on her face. "Apologies, sir," she said, "you must not have noticed my friend—"

"I'm not _that_ short!" Toph said.

"—standing in line here," Yue finished.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the guy said grumpily, wincing as he picked himself up. "I was here first."

Yue hesitated for a second; she was used to people who were trying to be just as polite as she was, Sokka thought, not people who'd lie outright. But the storekeeper, behind the counter, straightened up with a cup in her hand. "If you were," she said, "you forgot to order; girl's drink is up first."

She set the cup down with a clack and slid it across the counter; and Toph caught it in one hand and turned away. She still looked sort of angry, but she only stomped a little on the way over to their table.

Yue nodded to the storekeeper, and then paused: Toph had stumbled back a step and a half, and she'd hit some guy sitting at the counter before she'd recovered her balance. He'd turned around to see what had struck him, and now he was staring down at a wet spreading patch on his shirt—where he'd spilled his drink, Sokka realized.

"I apologize," Yue said, but the guy looked up with a wide smile on his face.

"No, no, not at all," he said. "It actually feels quite good! I would spill the rest on my head, except I would also like to drink it."

"We would be happy to pay for a refill," Yue said, grinning, "which you can spill on your head at your leisure."

The man laughed. "Unnecessary," he said, and then blinked, and looked more closely at her hair. "Those medallions—forgive me. Are you by any chance from the Northern Water Tribe?"

"Yes, I—"

"If I could beg a favor," the man said, "might I sit with you?"

.*.*.*.

His name was Zei; he was a professor all the way from Ba Sing Se, and he nearly fell off his chair when he learned that Katara and Sokka were both from the Southern Water Tribe.

"Amazing!" he said, when he had recovered his balance. "Simply amazing—we all heard of it when the fleet came north, of course, but I was never able to speak to anyone who was actually part of it, they were off to the front almost right away. I am the head of the anthropology department, you see—the university library has almost no literature whatsoever on the Southern Water Tribe, it is simply dreadful."

"The university?" Katara said. He talked like there was only one in the world.

Suki, across the table, was giving her a funny look, so she raised an eyebrow. "Sorry," Suki said, "I just—even at home, that was always the big news in the market, who'd be leaving for the exams to try to earn a spot."

"Oh, yes," Professor Zei said, nodding, "it is quite competitive. Probably it ought to be Ba Chang University, it was founded to serve the entire kingdom; but then Ba Chang and Ba Sing Se are nearly the same thing anyway. There would be no kingdom without the great city."

"And the Water Tribes are—your area of study?" Sokka said. He was sort of making a face; and it was kind of a weird idea, that someone could find their lives unusual enough to study, Katara thought. Before, that is, back home; now they really _were_ weird.

"No, no, my expertise lies elsewhere," Professor Zei said. "But Professor Taoyi would be quite upset with me if he found out I had run into you and had not asked you anything at all. No—I am currently engaged in a reconstructive study of the Air Nomads."

Katara sucked in a breath, and turned to look for Aang automatically; she covered the motion with a stretch, but it probably came off pretty awkwardly. Aang had been hovering over the table, sliding his head through the rock to watch people outside—but he tumbled back at Professor Zei's words, like even spirits could lose their balance, and turned around, eyes wide.

But Professor Zei didn't notice anything. "Fascinating, truly fascinating—of course, there is very little left, so much was lost in Sozin's purges. There are traces, though, in the works that remain; references to authors and books no one can find anymore. And, of course, there is the library of Wan Shi Tong."

He said it like he expected it to mean something, but all Katara could do was look at him blankly. Sokka, too, seemed clueless; but Yue looked like the name was familiar, and Suki was staring at Professor Zei in outright surprise.

"You _found_ it?" she said.

Professor Zei grinned, faintly smug. "Oh, yes," he said. "The lost library itself!" He glanced at Katara, and then at Sokka. "Surely you must have heard the stories. How the great library of Tuo-Ma-Tian was saved—the spirit's fox servants came in droves, stealing dozens of manuscripts despite the nuns' best efforts, and a week later the wildfires came? Wan Shi Tong's library is the greatest repository of knowledge in the world, books and writings saved from a dozen disasters—half of it is probably editions of which there are no other copies." He sighed dreamily. "The poetry of Nhan Duc, the epistles of Jingyao, Areum Hee-sik's calendar of the great eclipses for the war ministers of Seon—"

"Wait, what?" Sokka said. "Why would anybody want that?"

"It was fascinating," Professor Zei protested, "though of course it is not my area. Dark days for the Fire Nation, quite literally—of course, unification had not yet occurred in Hee-sik's time, I should more properly say the illustrious southern kingdoms of Bahratshana and Chempang—"

"An eclipse," Yue said, very calm and slow; but Katara could see her hands, she was gripping the edge of the table so hard that her fingers were trembling. "You mean to say that an eclipse of the sun—"

Katara stared at her. Of course, of _course_—had no one thought of it since Hee-sik? She knew what Yue was remembering, because she remembered it herself: that awful dim light in the sky, Yue limp with pain against the grass before Katara had darted around her to reach the spirit pool. That hadn't been an eclipse, not really; but the moon's light and power had both been blocked by Zhao's attack on the spirit, and in those moments everyone's Waterbending had failed them. And the comet—Roku had hinted at it, but she had known already, it was in the stories. The comet had made Firebenders powerful, and would again; why shouldn't an eclipse make them weaker?

But it wouldn't matter, Katara reminded herself, if there wasn't going to be another before the end of this summer. "How far did it go," she said, "that calendar?"

"Certainly not three thousand years into the future," Professor Zei said cheerfully. "No, I would expect you would need the university's observatory for that. A wonderful facility—you will not even need to do the calculations yourself, they have an armillary sphere the size of a room. The library had a duplicate of that, too—simply marvelous."

Sokka was gaping at him, and so was Suki; Yue was staring, though she hadn't let her mouth fall open; and Toph—

Actually, Toph was sitting there sipping her drink happily and gnawing on a plum. Figured, Katara thought darkly.

But for once it was easy to let the irritation slide away. They hadn't had anywhere in particular to go, except away from Toph's parents, and now that they were on the other side of the mountains, all they needed was somewhere for Toph to teach her Earthbending. Surely it would be easy enough to find a place to practice in Ba Sing Se.

Professor Zei glanced at them uncertainly, one by one. "... Would you perhaps like to accompany me on my return to the university?"

"Yeah, I think maybe we would," Sokka said.

.*.

The most direct route to Ba Sing Se cut through the Si Wong—not into the deep desert, but along the side. They probably wouldn't have risked it if they'd been by themselves; but Professor Zei had spent years searching for the library of Wan Shi Tong, and he had put together very detailed maps of the desert.

"We will have to pass through the dunes for part of the way," Professor Zei told them, eyeing one of his charts. "Most of the path crosses gravel flats and open ground; but the Si Wong is famed for its dunes for good reason. There are so many, there is no way to avoid them completely."

Sokka shrugged. "It's just a lot of sand," he said. "How bad could it be?"

"Oh, the sand is not so bad," Professor Zei agreed. "You grow used to the strain on your legs after a time. It is the sandstorms that make the dunes dangerous, more than anything." He rolled the charts up cheerfully, like he hadn't just said something incredibly ominous.

"... But you've done this before?" Katara said.

Professor Zei beamed. "Many times! And I have only come close to death twice, if you do not count the time with the camel spider."

"We're doomed," Toph said, and finished off her drink with a flourish. For once, Katara couldn't totally disagree.

Aang hovered at her shoulder, strikingly quiet, and she knew why; but she wanted to wait until they were out in the desert to ask Professor Zei about his research. Suki had told her what had happened, that time she'd been shot and dragged off to the Fire Nation fort, and a high wind suddenly rising inside a building seemed like a bad idea—outside, she could at least pass it off as a random breeze. And they hadn't had the dead guy talk with Toph yet.

So they walked out into the Si Wong until Misty Palms was a little heat-blurred smudge behind them, and then she let herself edge up next to Professor Zei, and spoke. "I hope you don't mind—you said you specialized in Air Nomad history?"

Professor Zei smiled broadly. "Oh, yes," he said. "Fascinating, truly fascinating—it would be a dangerous profession in the Fire Nation, but fortunately Ba Sing Se University encourages the search for truth."

"Truth?"

"Surely you've heard the things that are said of the Air Nomads," Professor Zei said, and Katara remembered involuntarily: the sages in the Avatar temple, repeating their lessons on the dangers of the Air Nomads and looking at her apologetically after. "Unfortunately, few primary sources remain. To be sure, you can still find secondhand tales in the mountains; but the Fire Nation burned so much in the early years of the war, before the Queen of Seven Kingdoms beat them back. That is why I set out for the library of Wan Shi Tong." He sighed, biting his lip, and for the first time since they had met him the smile dropped from his face. "The Fire Nation beat me to it, to some degree—many documents on the history of their nation had been destroyed before I came. But they were not thorough, and the library of the spirit is very, very large."

"And what did you find?" Katara said, more than usually aware of the faint blue shine of Aang in the edge of her vision.

"More than I could possibly tell you," Professor Zei said, and this time he sounded pleased when he sighed. "Truly, the riches of the library are beyond reckoning. The annals of Tsantsen Po, every volume; genealogies of the Tshub-Nga clan going back a thousand years; even the personal diaries of Bhrikya. I have long doubted the Fire Nation's claims that Avatar Aang—the Avatar who followed Roku, that is to say—"

"Yes," Katara said, "I've—been told his name."

"Of course," Professor Zei said. "Well, at any rate, Fire Nation historians are very fond of citing each other's assertions that he had raised a great army of Airbenders and meant to wreak terrible destruction. But Dzu Liing was a contemporary of that Avatar, a monk at the same temple where Aang was raised, and his writing had been saved in the library. He makes no mention whatever of any army. And that man recorded every time a fly landed on his windowsill." Professor Zei paused, wiping sweat from his forehead with one hand, and when he smiled at her again, the expression was tight and closed up. "They saw the ships coming, you know. He wrote of it in the last few days, how the comet shone down even through the coal-smoke. 'The elders' council says we must not fight them,'" he quoted, "'that if they have come to us for war we must not give it to them. The Avatar has vanished, but his purpose is with us, and there is no balance in hate.' A difficult passage to copy; but I did not like to leave it in the desert where so few eyes would ever read it."

"No," Katara agreed; it came out crumpled, squeezed through a tight throat. Aang drifted up and away silently, until he was only a dim light against the flat hot sky, and Katara didn't try to stop him.

.*.*.*.

Yue only meant to draw Katara aside to tell her how they might draw water up through the sand—not that Yue had ever done it before, but she had some ideas. But when she caught up and touched Katara's wrist, Katara looked at her with something like relief, like she was glad to be brought out of her own head.

"So," Sokka said behind them, "are we taking a break soon, or should I just save some time and die of heat exhaustion right now?"

Professor Zei glanced at the sun, and then at the horizon. "This is not a bad place to stop," he allowed. "The ridge provides a little shade."

Which was true: they were not far from a small sloping ridge, and it lay at such an angle as to provide a narrow line of shelter from the sun.

"I didn't realize coming with you guys was going to be so much fun," Toph said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Yue was still touching Katara's wrist, and when Katara's hand moved she was only a moment behind, quick enough to catch Katara's arm before the blow could fall. Toph couldn't see it, of course, but she ducked reflexively away from the rush of air, dropping down to touch a hand to the ground—to feel more clearly, Yue thought.

"Hey! What is your _problem_—"

"Excuse me," Yue said, still gripping Katara's arm. Katara talked so much, but now, now she was quiet; Yue was beside her, but she could see from here that Katara's eyes were wet. "We will see if we can collect some additional water. It will make things simpler if we do not have to ration so carefully."

"All right," Sokka said slowly, and Yue turned and pulled Katara toward the ridge.

When they had rounded it, she stopped pulling, and Katara sank down and put her head on her knees. "I know you do not like her," Yue began.

"I hate her," Katara said, muffled, and then lifted her head, scrubbing a little at her eyes. "But it wasn't her, right then. Not really. I was—it was something else." She sniffed, shook her head, took a deep breath. "It won't happen again."

It didn't seem like the moment to press; so Yue let it be. "The water," she said, and knelt down next to Katara to touch the dry hot ground.

Katara put her hand to it, too, and then made a face. "You really think we can get anything?" she said.

"There was water at Misty Palms," Yue said, "and it must have come from somewhere. Far down, probably; but we might be able to get something." She hesitated. "She's the reason I thought of it, you know—the way she can feel the earth."

Katara grimaced. "Well, now I don't want to do it anymore," she said, and she was only half laughing.

"Katara," Yue said, gently chiding.

"I know, I know," Katara said, and sighed. "She annoys me so much! She never listens, she never does anything unless _she_ wants to—she's so _stubborn_—"

Yue coughed twice, studiously.

"Oh, shut up," Katara said.

Yue wasn't sure whether she could feel the water or she just hoped very badly that she could; but they concentrated and raised their hands together, arcs and loops to draw the water up, and when they paused and looked the ground at their feet was damp.

"We did it," Katara said, beaming, and for a second Yue could almost forget she was the Avatar, and see only a girl who was proud of herself.

They drew the water they'd called up into cups; all of Professor Zei's waterskins were already full, but this would at least keep them from having to use it as quickly, even if there was no water further in.

"You're done," Yue said, as Katara filled the last cup.

Katara eyed her. "No, there's still an inch or two," she said, nodding at the cup in her hand.

Yue laughed, and shook her head. "No, I mean with Waterbending," she said. "You know everything I know—we made that up, together, and pulled water out of the desert." She would have spread her hands if she hadn't been clutching full cups. "If I'm any judge, you are as much a master as I am."

Katara had gone still, cup in hand and a dollop of water waiting patiently by her fingers. "You'll still—you'll stay with us, won't you?" she said, and then tried a laugh, voice cracking only a little. "I mean, somebody has to keep me from punching her."

Yue lifted a finger and nudged the water into Katara's cup, smiling. "It would be my honor to serve the Avatar," she said.

"No, I mean—for real. Not for that. Not that that's not real, but—just me." Katara flushed a little. Though, Yue thought, to be fair, the sun was very hot.

Yue grinned. "It would be my honor," she said again, more gently. "But we should go back—we've been quite a while, you know. I expect Sokka is thirsty."

* * *

><p>Zuko had been relieved to leave Lingsao behind them, but that was before he'd realized Uncle was leading them right toward Sennang.<p>

"Are you _insane_?" he hissed, when he realized which road they were on, passing the third signpost in as many miles with the queen's seal painted on it. "No, I know, senile—your age has finally caught up with you—"

"Relax, my nephew," Uncle Iroh said unhelpfully, and smiled up at the sky. "All will be well. It is a lovely city, you know."

"A lovely city full of people who would be happy to _kill us_," Zuko said, and then paused. "You've—have you been to Sennang before?"

"A very long time ago," Uncle said, and glanced at him. "It was occupied, then; and there are few things as unlovely as occupied cities. But something of its beauty remained, even then. I also escaped through it once, after it had been rebuilt."

Beauty—Zuko scowled. A useless measurement, too subjective, Father had said so many times; it could be used to entrance or manipulate the foolish, but intimidation, impressiveness, were far less variable. Besides, Uncle thought _beetles_ were beautiful. Uncle's taste could not be trusted.

The walls of Sennang did not have the scope of the walls of Ba Sing Se, but they were still very tall; the mountains were north and west of them, the road curving through the foothills, and the walls were there and hidden and then there again as they drew closer. The road filled—at first they had been alone, but by the time the walls were close enough that even the foothills could not block their view, they had had to dismount, and they were shuffling along in the middle of a crowd with their ostrich horses following behind. Normally, the road would have been split, space for those heading toward the city and those heading away; but there was no one traveling west from Sennang.

Uncle might have been senile, but Zuko still expected a moderate effort at self-preservation, and he waited for the moment when Uncle would touch his elbow, lead him off among the trees and describe a plan that Zuko could then spend an hour mentally tearing apart. But that moment failed to come, and failed to come, and failed to come.

"Uncle," Zuko said. "Uncle, are you planning to walk right up to the gate?"

"I am," Uncle said placidly, and then laughed—_laughed_—at the look on Zuko's face. "I told you, nephew: be at ease." He took something from his waistband—a coin?—and flipped it once in the air before curling his fingers around it. "We will be quite safe, I promise you."

Promises—promises, like beauty, were nothing, useless, dependent on too many factors that could not be adequately controlled. Azula, Zuko thought, would never be foolish enough to rely on them; and Zuko ought to know better.

Which did not explain why he let it go with nothing more than a roll of his eyes, and kept walking down the road.


	14. The Desert, Part 2

Sokka leapt for the cup of water in Katara's hand like it was going to save his life, and Suki had to swallow a giggle. "You are the best thing ever," he said to Katara, quite sincerely; and then he gave Suki a glance she couldn't quite interpret, and downed the whole cup in one giant gulp.

Suki turned to find Yue, because it was probably best that she be the one to give Toph her water, instead of Katara; but Yue was already moving, meeting Suki's eyes with a little nod.

Suki hadn't been close enough to hear what Professor Zei had been saying, before he and Katara had fallen silent and begun to walk with their shoulders tight as knots. But the look on Katara's face, that sudden fierce unhappiness that had had her raising her fist—that was the look Katara got when people were dead and she hated someone for it. Usually herself. That was the look that meant there were going to be some conversations where one of the important participants was invisible.

She was looking at Katara, a moment away from opening her mouth even though she had no idea what she was going to say; and then Toph jerked in the corner of her eye.

"I'm sorry," Yue said immediately, "I didn't mean to—"

"Nah," Toph said. "Wasn't you—it's this stupid sand." She kicked at it with one foot—bare, as always, to help her feel. "The flats back there were fine, but the sand makes everything weird. Fuzzy. It's harder for me to tell where the edges of things are." She reached out, less confidently than usual, for the cup; Yue touched a finger to the back of her hand to help guide her along. "I can do it!" Toph insisted, but Suki was watching, and she didn't yank her hand away.

"I'm afraid it will only get sandier from here," Professor Zei said apologetically. "At least temporarily—we are approaching the dunes, we will not hit more solid ground until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Great," Toph said sourly.

"You can't bend sand?" Suki said.

"It is possible," Professor Zei said. "The people of the desert are called Sandbenders for that very reason—"

"But it's _weird_," Toph said. "It's not like rocks. You can't get a good grip on sand." She made a face. "When you Earthbend, you have to stand your ground."

"Kind of literally," Sokka said, and then lifted his hands defensively when Toph snorted. "Hey, I get it, sand doesn't really stand its ground."

"It is not, however, something to underestimate," Professor Zei said, and when Suki glanced at him, he was looking off into the distance, at a wide brownish smudge on the horizon.

"What's that?" Katara said.

"A sandstorm, I believe," Professor Zei said. "It will come more quickly than you might think; we should stay by the ridge until it either strikes or passes."

.*.*.*.

Maybe Toph didn't like sand, but she _could_ bend it, at least a little; and Katara watched her hands reluctantly as she plunged her fingers into the sand and twisted. She'd been putting it off the whole way through the mountains, telling herself she shouldn't even start with Toph when she hadn't finished Waterbending. But Yue had ruined that particular excuse, Katara thought grumpily.

"Instant sandstone!" Sokka said. "Totally awesome."

Toph punched the new stone up into a little lean-to against the side of the ridge, and then they waited. Katara was still hoping it might slide by them, mostly because being stuck in a small space with Toph was not something she was looking forward to, but it was barrelling right toward them. It almost reminded Katara of home, in the last few minutes before it hit them; she could close her eyes and block out the heat, and pretend the stinging against her skin was sleet instead of sand.

None of it hurt Aang, of course, but a moment after they piled in and Toph closed up the last wall behind them, he drifted through the side. He still looked pensive, but he wasn't brooding by himself several hundred feet up, and when Katara offered him a tiny smile, he returned it.

"Hope you're happy," Toph muttered as she shuffled by, and Katara clenched her fists and tried not to want to punch her again.

"This is _not_ the same thing as helping us set up camp!" she said. "You're completely impossible."

Toph snorted. "Look, I carry my own weight," she said, and she had repeated the same thing so often as they were crossing the mountains that Katara could practically feel her ears shriveling, hearing it _again_. "I don't need anything from you—I don't know why you have so much trouble with that."

"I don't need you to need things from me," Katara said, "I need things from you!"

"... Sorry, can you say that one more time?" Sokka said.

Professor Zei was leaning against the further wall, watching them uncertainly like he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to say anything—not his area of expertise, Katara thought sourly. Suki looked like she was about to say something, but Yue touched her elbow, and she kept quiet.

And Toph—Toph had a deeply skeptical expression, arms crossed over her chest. "I don't need help," she said sharply, "I can handle myself."

Katara stared at her. "It's like you aren't even _listening_ to me. We split up chores to help each other—I'm asking you to help all of us."

She was about to spit out something else angry, but then Aang drifted in front of her, Toph's annoyed expression visible through his face. "Wait," he said quietly. "Wait, Katara, remember her parents."

Katara looked at him, and forced herself to take a deep breath. He was right, she'd let herself forget half the reason Toph had come with them in the first place. _You need help_, Toph's father had said, _you always will_, and Katara had seen her face when he said it. "I'm not trying to help you," she said again, "I'm trying to get you to help me."

Toph was still tilting her head warily. "You don't want to help me," she repeated.

"To be honest, I still sort of want to punch you in the head," Katara said.

Toph narrowed her eyes, and then, abruptly, started to giggle. "That's not very nice," she said. "And here I thought you were the sugar queen."

"Normally I'm very nice," Katara said. "It's just that I don't like you," but when she sat back against the sandstone wall, she could feel herself smiling. Just a little.

* * *

><p>Despite Uncle's promise and the bizarre influence it had over him, Zuko found himself swallowing hard when they reached the gates of Sennang. Surely even Uncle's brazen peculiarity could not get them through this.<p>

But Uncle beamed kindly at the heavily-armored Earth Kingdom soldier at the gate, and then flashed the man his palm; and the soldier bowed and led them inside himself.

It reminded Zuko of something, when he was done staring in shock—Uncle, something in his hand, someone letting them in somewhere they never should have been able to get—

"The barn," he said abruptly, pausing halfway up the set of steps they were climbing.

Uncle turned to him with both eyebrows raised. "What was that, nephew?"

The soldier had stopped, too, waiting for them on the—the next landing of the palace stairs, Zuko realized belatedly, because that was where they were. No wonder Uncle had allowed their ostrich horses to be led away.

What was it that Uncle carried, that would have him both let into a barn and brought to an Earth Kingdom palace?

Zuko shook his head and began climbing again, and only when the soldier had turned and begun to move again did he look at Uncle. "That thing, that little—coin you have."

"Ah, yes," Uncle said, nodding, and then glanced up the stairs, toward the broad palace doors waiting at the top. "A little patience, Zuko, and you will see."

Sometimes he really hated Uncle Iroh.

They were not led into the main hall, nowhere Zuko would expect petitioners or guests to be taken; the soldier took them down a side corridor instead, to a nondescript little room where they were probably going to be murdered, and left them there with another deep bow.

"Uncle—"

"Patience," Uncle said. "It will be easier to understand when the queen is here."

Zuko didn't even try to keep his jaw from dropping. "The _queen_? Uncle—"

"All in good time, my nephew," Uncle said, and smiled.

* * *

><p>The storm wasn't all that long—not compared to the winter storms that could go on for days at home. But it moved a lot of sand; when the howl of the wind had died down and Toph cracked the side of their little shelter open, sand spilled in.<p>

"Hey, whoa," Sokka said. "Wasn't there air there before?"

"Sandstorms can displace tremendous amounts of soil," Professor Zei said knowingly. "In the Si Wong, they have been known to deposit many feet of sand at a time."

Suki raised her eyebrows and glanced at the crack: sand was still pouring in steadily. "So," she said, conversational, "how buried do you suppose we are?"

Toph put a hand to the ceiling, such as it was, and tipped her head thoughtfully. "A foot or two, I'd say." She smirked, and turned her head in Katara's direction. "So this is another one of those times where you want my help?"

Katara sniffed. "Only if you feel like it," she said, but at last she felt no urge to ball up her hands when she said it.

There wasn't enough space for Toph to stand up, so she simply knelt in the middle and thrust her arms up sharply. The whole top of their shelter flew off, stone flung into the air by the movements of Toph's hands, and sand slid over the tops of the walls and swamped them immediately. But Toph was right: they hadn't been buried all that far. It wasn't exactly easy to clamber out of waist-high sand, but nobody suffocated.

The desert looked almost completely different, when they finally got out. The ridge was still there, but it was a lot shorter; they hadn't left the flats behind all that long ago, but now there was sand as far as Katara could see.

They'd clutched their packs, kept them close by their feet, but Sokka had lost track of his; Katara turned to ask Toph whether she could maybe stand to help with that, too, but when she looked, Toph was facing the deeper desert, frowning.

"Do you guys hear that?" she said.

"Hear what?" Katara said, and then, inevitably, heard it herself the second the words were out. A weird sound, a low heavy thrumming, like somebody tapping their fingers over the surface of a drum.

"That's not, like, another sandstorm, right?" Sokka said.

"Oh, no," Professor Zei said. "No, I expect that's a swarm of scorpion wasps."

"Excuse me?" Sokka said. "_Scorpion_ wasps?"

"Massive," Professor Zei said. "Beautiful creatures, though of course I have not studied them extensively. They often follow in the wake of sandstorms, looking for injured creatures to—well." He cleared his throat.

"Did I pick the worst week ever to travel with you guys," Toph said, "or is this a normal level of life-threatening danger?"

"We're having something of an upswing right now," Suki admitted.

"He's seen them before," Aang said to Katara. "He knows what they're like, he must have run into them on his own—what did he do then?"

Katara obediently grabbed Professor Zei's elbow. "How do you normally avoid them?" she said. They were visible now, a cloud of _something_ in the air a little to the east, and the hum was growing louder, loud enough that she had to raise her voice.

"I usually conceal myself beneath the sand," Professor Zei said. "Of course, there are so many of us now—we may not have time."

"Oh, _excellent_," Sokka said, "that's just perfect—clearly being buried under three feet of sand was actually the _less_ dangerous situation to be in—"

Toph wiggled her toes, sand shifting under her feet. "And there's something else coming," she said. "I can't tell what it is, it's all blurry around the edges."

"Probably a horde of venomous camel spiders," Sokka said, throwing up his hands. "Maybe they'll kill the scorpion wasps for us, and we can just sneak away!"

Katara glanced at Yue, who looked back at her uncertainly. There was still water somewhere under the ground, but it had taken so long to pull up even enough to fill their little cups—they weren't going to be able to get enough to do much damage. At least Yue had her pike.

"Okay," Katara said, and touched Toph's shoulder. "You're going to have to help me again. How much Earthbending can you teach me in thirty seconds?"

.*.*.*.

"Not much," Toph said, but she thought about it anyway. She couldn't feel the wasps themselves, exactly, because they weren't touching the ground; but the buzz of their wings was making the sand shake, the fizz of it helpfully obscuring whatever _was_ coming at them over the sand.

They were in trouble, they were, and she wasn't exactly happy about it; but she couldn't help thinking that it was something, and something was better than the absolute nothing that had happened to her at home. It was like being in the tournament ring again, except there was hot sand under her instead of smooth stone.

Also, there hadn't been any scorpion wasps in the tournament ring.

She bit her lip. Okay, so Katara was really annoying—but she'd said out loud that she needed Toph's help, and she hadn't acted like it bothered her to ask. Or it had, but only because of who she'd been asking, not _what_ she'd been asking. And Toph had helped her, so it was only fair to ask right back. It wasn't like her parents, the way they'd made her feel so indebted to them, like she'd only ever take and never give—this was an even trade.

"They're in the air," she said, turning her face toward the spot where she knew Katara was standing. "I mean, I can hear them, but it sounds like there are a lot, and I'm not sure I'll be able to tell where they are—not the way I'll need to."

"Well," Katara said, and she was smiling, Toph could hear it in her voice. "Need some help?"

By the time the first scorpion wasp came zooming down at them, Katara's hands were sweaty around Toph's elbows. Toph yanked on the sand—stupid sand, she hated sand—as well as she could, and when Toph said, "Okay," Katara pulled her arms up and she hurled the sand outward.

A hit—she could tell, the closest thrum dropped away and something hit the sand not too far from her feet. Apparently, the Si Wong grew big scorpion wasps, because that thing was nearly the same size as Katara.

Sokka yelled somewhere behind them, and Toph could hear the sound of a sword slashing around. She yanked more sand from the ground around them as Yue's pike whistled by, and then Katara said, "Now!" and Toph punched the sand out again. Suki—that had to be Suki swinging a pack by the straps, and Toph couldn't help grinning a little when she heard it smack heavily into another wasp.

"Goodness," Professor Zei said, "what an extraordinary day this is turning out to be," and Toph didn't understand why he'd said it until she was reaching for another round of sand, stretching out with her bending—whatever had been coming at them on the ground, it was here.

* * *

><p>Today was the first day Buyan had gone out with a sailer, and she had told herself again and again not to be stupid. Most scouting trips never saw anything, and that was good—that was best, that was because the Khatuo cared well for their territory. A boring day in the sailers was something to be proud of.<p>

But her heart had still jumped into her throat when they'd seen the odd spray of sand to the southwest, and she had left her position to climb into the prow. She'd been the one to report to Alim that wasps were swarming around whatever had thrown that sand in the air, and when they drew around the little ridge and Shingqur drew the sailer to a halt, she was the first to put boots on the sand.

Scorpion wasps were fierce when they were all together, so she pulled a cone of sand up into the sky and hurled it through the middle of the swarm. Several of the wasps were tumbled upward, others down toward the sand, and by the time she let the little cyclone disperse, the swarm had been divided temporarily.

"Go!" Alim said, and the rest of the scouting team threw themselves over the sailer's sides and hurried forward.

Travelers—not entirely unusual, but this didn't look like a trading caravan hoping for a shortcut to Ba Sing Se. Buyan couldn't see anything that looked like it might be valuable; their packs were just about large enough for basic supplies, and judging by the way one of the girls was swinging hers around, they didn't have anything particularly precious in them.

Peculiar; but a guest was a guest, and guests were good fortune, at least if they were willing to give appropriate gifts of food. And there were not many, in this group. They would not overwhelm a shared bowl.

Buyan was the closest, and she reached them first, catching the man in the middle by the arm. "Come on," she said, "come on—we can get you away quickly, the wasps won't come after us."

"Of course—that is—" He glanced over his shoulder at one of the girls in blue, the one with dark hair.

The boy in blue was already sprinting toward Buyan. "No wasps? I am so there," he said, panting, as he sped past her toward the sailer.

.*.

The Khatuo had many places of shelter; they were the fourth of the nine tribes. Not the highest, but high enough to claim some of the largest cave-riddled outcroppings, and one with a year-round spring.

They were there now, resting before they traveled out into the deep desert again—the perfect place to receive guests.

The sailer nearly flew over the sand—Buyan had nothing to compare it to, she had never sailed on water, but she couldn't imagine it would be any better than the desert wind and the shush of sand against a hull. Their guests were huddled amidships; the girl in green looked like she was thinking about being sick, but the rest of them were looking around curiously, and the man was muttering to himself under his breath.

Buyan snagged one of the ropes as the sailer drew up near the stone, and swung herself over the side with a whoop, letting herself tumble to the ground.

"You're going to break your arm again if you don't stop doing that," Turhun said, leaping down to land beside her, and she considered pulling her headcloth aside just so she could stick her tongue out at him.

"Worth it," she declared.

They had taken longer than they should have to return from scouting, and Tomur was waiting in the first cave, with Arzigul beside him.

"We have brought you guests," Alim told them, bowing.

"Oh?" Tomur said. "Have they a meal to share?"

He was talking to Alim, but his eyes rested inquiringly on the man; yet when someone moved, it was the dark-haired girl in blue. "Oh—um, rice?" she said, sliding her pack from her shoulders. "I mean, there's—there might be some sand in it—"

Tomur laughed. "We will bend it out," he said. "As long as you offer the food in a spirit of goodwill, we will cook it for you and share it with you, and forgive a little sand."

"Hey, you got us away from those wasp things," the boy said. "I'm goodwill up to my eyeballs over here."

.*.*.*.

The Sandbenders kept their word—and once they were inside the caves, they unwrapped their faces, which made them way less creepy-looking. For a second there, when they'd come leaping out of nowhere and swept the wasps away, Sokka had thought they were in for a repeat of the swamp. But these guys were way nicer.

Although, to be fair, probably a lot fewer battalions of soldiers had come poking around in the Si Wong.

Anyway, they cooked a bunch of Katara's rice in a really big pot, and then they put it in a really big bowl, along with some meat and spices and funny layered bread.

"Youtazi," said the girl who sat down next to Sokka, pinching a piece of meat between her fingers and lifting it straight from the bowl to her mouth. "Try it, it's good."

It was good, and so was the meat, even though Sokka was pretty sure it was from camel spiders; and as far as he could tell, the rice was sand-free.

"So," said the tall woman, Arzigul, when the big bowl was half-empty. "If you are not traders, why are you traveling the desert?"

"It's the quickest route to Ba Sing Se," Suki said, "when you aren't being swarmed by scorpion wasps."

"And you need to get to Ba Sing Se quickly," Arzigul said.

This time, it was Yue who answered. "There's something we hope to find there," she said, "and it's better found sooner than later."

"Much better?" said the leader, Tomur.

"Much," Yue said, and didn't elaborate.

Tomur and Arzigul glanced at each other; Arzigul's headcloth hid her expression when she turned her head, but Tomur looked intrigued. "Is it so great a secret," he said, "that you would share rice and not your reasoning?"

Katara shifted awkwardly beside Yue, and cleared her throat. "We don't know yet," she said, "but if we find it, well. We're going to need to tell the king of Ba Sing Se, at least," and they hadn't even talked about it yet, but she was totally right. If there really was going to be an eclipse, they'd need to tell somebody who could tell the rest of the Earth Kingdoms, and there was nobody better to do that than the king of the biggest one.

"The king of Ba Sing Se?" Tomur said. "And why do you think he'll listen to you?"

Katara sighed. "Because I'm the Avatar," she said, and Sokka almost laughed. He liked the Avatar talk nearly as much as the dead guy talk.

* * *

><p>If Zuko's pacing was annoying Uncle, it was impossible to tell; but it made Zuko feel better to imagine that it was.<p>

He reached the corner again and turned on his heel. Uncle was just sitting on the floor, legs folded, like they hadn't been stuck in this stupid little room for—an hour? Half an hour? It was impossible to tell.

"Ah, there," Uncle said suddenly, and when Zuko looked he was smiling, watching the gap under the door. "Someone is coming."

He'd barely finished the sentence before the door creaked open.

The woman on the other side was robed in green; her hair was done up with jade combs and gold pins and who knew what else, and there were locks of iron-grey in amidst the black. The queen, Zuko thought, and was frozen for a moment—Father would have done something, struck her or spat in her face because she was the enemy, but they were in the middle of her palace in the middle of her city. However honorable, it seemed inescapably unwise.

Uncle did neither. He drew himself to his feet and then bowed low, low as he never had to Father, and smiled. "Your Majesty," he said.

"Really, Iroh?" the queen of Lannang said. "I did not think it had been long enough for you to forget my name." She lifted one hand, held it out, and lying flat in her palm was a Pai Sho tile. A white lotus piece, carved out of marble.

Uncle held his own hand out beside it, the white lotus tile in his palm exactly the same size and shape even though his was old and wooden and rubbed smooth. "Miansun," he said. "It is good to see you."

"Uncle," Zuko said, "I'm starting to think I'm the one who has gone mad. What are you _doing_?"

"Greeting an old friend," Uncle said, which was less than unhelpful; and Queen Miansun smiled.

"Perhaps we should sit," she said, and with two sharp small motions of her hands she raised two benches out of the stone floor, as easy as breathing.

"We're criminals from the Fire Nation who are shut in a small room with an Earthbender queen," Zuko said. "Why aren't we dead yet?"

"Criminals?" Queen Miansun said. "You've had an exciting time of it since I saw you last, Iroh." She swept around the end of one bench and seated herself, graceful and attentive. "Tell me."

Uncle Iroh glanced back at Zuko, calm, with that infuriating look of forbearance he so often wore. "She isn't going to kill you, nephew," he said. "Sit."

If she _were_ going to kill them, Zuko thought, she could probably do it whether he sat down or not.

He sat.

"The tale would be very long," Iroh said to the queen, "and under other circumstances, I would be happy to stay the week it would take to tell it well. But I am afraid we do not have the time."

"You require shelter?" Queen Miansun said, and Zuko couldn't help but stare at her. She was as mad as Uncle, if she was so willing to harbor fugitives from a nation that already had reason to destroy her. Why would she call attention to herself so? Surely it was simply luck that Father had not killed her already.

"I think that would be unwise," Uncle Iroh said, "though I am grateful beyond telling for the thought. The Fire Nation is already at your doorstep, and I would not bring more trouble than I can help upon a generous friend."

The queen smiled. "But you have need of something," she said, "or you would not have come to me." She looked oddly pleased by the prospect, but surely she knew they had nothing to offer in exchange, no reward or bribe for her. What could she possibly gain by this?

"We hope to continue onward and eastward, to safety in Ba Sing Se." Uncle Iroh spread his hands wide. "There alone we may escape the Fire Nation's grasp."

"And it is a crowded road to Ba Sing Se, these days," the queen filled in, nodding. "Refugees from the south ten years ago, from the east now—always the same story." She paused, considering, painted face carefully expressionless. "But I should think envoys of the queen of Lannang would encounter little trouble."

Zuko blinked. Was she truly proposing to hand over official papers with her seal, to get one stranger and one man she had evidently met before to Ba Sing Se, with only their word and whatever the white lotus tile meant to assure her that they would cause no trouble? It did not seem possible, and yet Uncle was smiling.

"Thank you, Miansun," Uncle said, and the queen stood and touched his shoulder gently.

"It is a little thing," she said. "I wish I could do more."

"I have never been one to disdain the little things," Uncle said, and Zuko couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"No," the queen agreed, and then paused halfway around the bench. "It will take some time to get the papers ready, Iroh—would you like me to have some tea brought?"

* * *

><p>"The Avatar," Tomur said, sitting back. "Hard to believe—and yet for exactly that reason it would be foolish to make the claim if you were not. Surely you could compose a likelier-sounding lie."<p>

"Oh, we totally could," Sokka said helpfully.

"Well," Arzigul said. "Maintaining balance in the world is at least as generous a gift as a full pot of rice; we would be poor hosts if we failed to reciprocate." She touched Tomur's elbow. "We have had a good year, my dear. We could spare a sailer."

"A sailer," Tomur said, "and one to sail it, I think. Someone who's scouted a few times, Buyan," for the girl sitting next to Sokka had already stood up hopefully.

"I have," said a boy a little further around the circle, and stood up, too. "I could take them."

"To the edge of the desert in the north, and back," Arzigul said.

"To the edge of the desert in the north and back," the boy confirmed. "It won't be that long a sail from here."

Katara couldn't hold back a grin—that would cut down the time it would take to reach Ba Sing Se, there was no way it couldn't. And they needed every day they could get, if they were going to try to find an eclipse that fell before the comet's return.

"I'll be careful," the boy continued.

"Yeah," Buyan said. "Don't break your arm or anything."

The boy made a face at her, and then turned to them and bowed. "I'm Turhun," he said. "I'll sail you to the north, and from there you can find the road to Ba Sing Se."

Katara stood up, ready to thank him—and then Professor Zei popped up from his seat. "Amazing!" he said. "The Avatar herself—_and_ a Sandbender. There are barely any records on the Sandbenders at the university, it's really quite disgraceful."

"Though, of course," Sokka muttered, "they are not my area of expertise," and Suki, beside him, snorted into her hand.

* * *

><p>The lieutenant general was not in the command tent when Yin arrived, but she didn't want to pull anyone aside to go look for him—everyone near by seemed to already have a task of their own, except the messenger who had come along beside her, and she wasn't about to send him running around the camp to look for the man.<p>

So she waited inside the flap, Kiri hitched up and already eating outside, and occupied herself with observation.

She wasn't about to go through his things; but there was no harm in looking at what had been left out where anyone might see it. And, to be honest, there was not much to see. Judging by the tent, the lieutenant general was not a man of extravagant tastes—there was minimal decoration, and most of the space was occupied by a table that was covered with maps and battle plans, little marking-pieces for battalions scattered across the surface. Yin glanced at them, tried to interpret them from the wrong side of the table: the Fire Nation battalions seemed to be spread quite thin, and as small as the green markers were, there were so many of them—

"Apologies," said the man behind her, and he let the tent flap fall shut again behind him. "I did not intend to keep you waiting—poor recompense, when you came so quickly. I am Lieutenant General Kizao."

"No matter," Yin said, waving a hand. Even if she wanted to cause the man difficulties, he clearly had plenty of his own at the moment. "It gave me time to catch my breath. You have orders from General Jingzan?"

"By way of Jingzan, yes," Kizao said, "but originally from the crown princess herself. Jingzan received a messenger hawk with the royal seal."

Yin couldn't help raising her eyebrows. Orders from the royal family were relatively rare, and therefore important when they were given out—no wonder he had sent a messenger so quickly. "For me?" she said.

"For you," Kizao confirmed. "Not personally, of course—but to the nearest fleet commander we would be able to contact, and we knew someone would be coming with reinforcements. Just in time, too," he admitted. "We still have New Ozai, but the rebellion here is—formidable."

_Possibly too strong for us_, Yin interpreted.

"But that is no longer your concern, now that you have arrived," Kizao said, and crossed to the far side of the table. "I have the scroll itself," he continued, lifting one from the edge of the table and holding it out, "but the contents were described to General Jingzan. You are to depart for Chameleon Bay, in the far east—not to take the coast, only to transport, so confine yourself to the western waters."

Not to take the coast—then they meant her to transport something else, soldiers or equipment. Well, she could not complain; if she'd been sent to a battle, Yin thought wryly, she had no idea which side she would end up firing at, the way she'd been thinking lately.

"Thank you, Lieutenant General," she said formally, and took the scroll—it felt oddly light against her fingers, for something so important. "It is my honor to serve our nation."

"And mine," Kizao said, and bowed.


	15. The Serpent's Pass, Part 1

Happy (western) New Year! Every follow and fave this gets warms my heart so much, thank you all. Hopefully you're still enjoying this! As per usual, some of the basic trappings of this chapter will look familiar, but enough things should be different to keep it interesting. *crosses fingers* (And, NB: there's a bunch of OCs in this chapter who aren't going anywhere, so if that's the sort of thing that bothers you, well, now you know.)

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8: The Serpent's Pass<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>"Water is the best thing <em>ever<em>," Sokka said, and promptly plunged his head in the stream.

Katara couldn't exactly disagree, although she wasn't about to stick her head in it. It hadn't been that long a trip across the desert, not with Turhun and the sandsailer to carry them. Her fragile truce with Toph had even been preserved, although that was probably partly because Toph had been distracted—she'd fought with Turhun, the first day, and then they'd spent the rest of the journey throwing sand at each other under the guise of "comparing techniques".

But it had been chilly at night and roasting during the day, and once they'd passed into the deeper dunes Katara had been weirdly uncomfortable in a whole new way. It was like those dreams where you tried to yell but no sound came out; except it wasn't that she couldn't feel water anymore, it was that there was no water to feel, outside of their packs. She couldn't even swing a pike around like Yue to take her mind off of it.

But Turhun had left them at the edge of the sands, waving goodbye and turning the sailer around with long sweeps of his arms; and now they had hit grass again, and they couldn't be far from the twin Yellow Seas.

So she didn't plunge her head in the brook. But she did reach out and pull a little water up, curling it into a sphere, pulling it toward her and then pushing it away before she let it drop back with a splash. It felt good.

She looked up to find Yue smiling at her, water hovering under the other girl's hand. "I missed it, too," Yue said.

"Yeah, yeah, all right," Toph said, "yay water." She took their old map from Katara's hand and unrolled it. "We've got a little ways to go before we get to the Yellow Sea and the ferries; you've got a lot of Earthbending to learn, and now you've finally got some proper earth to learn it on."

Katara pursed her lips, and tried not to sigh. She could do this without hitting Toph in the face, she could. She was the Avatar.

"I'll help you set up camp tonight if you pay attention, sugar queen," Toph said, smirking.

Suki, who had been adjusting her pack, slung it back on and reached out to pat Katara on the shoulder.

"All right," Katara said, and took a deep breath. "Where do we start?"

.*.*.*.

Sokka was still keeping an eye out, but the showers of gravel had mostly stopped after the ferry station had appeared in the distance. Katara had stopped yelling, too; now Toph was the loud one, and Katara was occasionally hissing back under her breath.

"This is going to be a long trip to Ba Sing Se," Suki murmured beside him, hefting her pack a little higher on her shoulder.

"Maybe the ferries will have sails," Sokka offered. "We could set them behind one and let them yell at each other, we'd be there in no time."

"And they were doing so well, too," Suki said, sighing.

Sokka raised his eyebrows. "Because there was a swarm of scorpion wasps. Do you want another swarm of scorpion wasps?"

Suki glanced over her shoulder, and then ducked; a rock bounced up through the space where her head had been and skittered away over the path. "Maybe a small one," she said, straightening up again, and then laughed aloud at the look on his face.

"I'll pass," he said, just in case she hadn't gotten that.

They weren't that far away, anyway, and surely getting on the ferry would distract Katara. How did they even do it, anyway? Did people just pile on? Honestly, the whole concept of a ferry was a little weird. Did no one around here have their own canoe?

And the ferry station itself was kind of imposing. Most official Earth Kingdom buildings were ridiculously tall, but the ferry station was nearly a mountain, more literally than usual. Sokka had no idea whether they'd built it or they'd just hollowed out a hill that had already been there, but either way, it was pretty ridiculous. But Toph had sworn up and down that the little mountain was the right place; and they were close enough now that the weird fuzzy line of green around the bottom had resolved itself into uniformed Earth Kingdom soldiers, so she'd probably been right.

Although they were kind of short, Sokka thought. Not _all_ of them, granted; but General Fong and the city authorities in Gaoling had both favored pretty massive guys. Apparently the Ba Chang ferries didn't care quite as much about appearances.

"Stop," shouted one of the shorter ones when they drew close enough, and even Katara and Toph quit talking. The Earth Kingdom soldier lifted a hand, and eyed them.

"Weapons?" said another soldier.

"Well, yeah," Sokka said. "But, I mean, not more of them than anybody else, probably."

"I don't know," the first soldier said thoughtfully. "They look like troublemakers to me."

Sokka blinked, startled. Was it Katara? Could they tell she was the Avatar somehow, even though she hadn't done anything?

But Suki, beside him, narrowed her eyes; and then she strode forward three steps and put her hand to the first soldier's face.

"Uh, Suki," Sokka began, but she wasn't punching anybody in the head—she was only lifting the soldier's helmet, drawing it up and away to reveal a vaguely familiar girl's smiling face.

"Mikari!" Suki cried, and threw the helmet to the ground so she could hug the girl with both arms.

.*.*.*.

They knew her, obviously, though she didn't look familiar to Yue—Yue glanced sideways, toward Toph, and she must have shifted her weight enough to move the dirt at her feet, because Toph turned her face to Yue and shrugged.

The girl was someone the Avatar and her friends had met together, then, on their long trip north before they had known Yue—when it had just been the three of them, traveling half the world together. Yue bit her lip for a second; despite her best efforts, she couldn't help thinking of Princess Azula, smiling knowingly at her beneath dank green trees. But she'd taught Katara everything she knew, and Katara had asked her to stay anyway—surely she could be certain by now that the thing in the swamp really hadn't been telling the future.

"Okay, okay," Toph said, "enough with the hugfest. What's the deal?"

"Right, right, sorry," Suki said, and disentangled herself cheerfully from a third girl. Her first cry had been rather loud, and now there were a good dozen girls crowded around them, pulling off their helmets and grinning. "They're Warriors of Kyoshi—from home, from my island. What are you even doing here?"

"We were called to service," said the girl Suki had called Mikari, shrugging one armored shoulder. "Not us specifically, that is—there are so many refugees coming in from the west these days, the roads and the ferries are overrun, and the usual guards were far too few. There are so many people waiting, there's practically a city in there." She motioned over her shoulder to the great sloping hill behind her.

"And they just had you come up here to fill in?" Katara said. She sounded doubtful, and Yue understood why: the Earth Kingdoms were certainly allies, but that didn't mean they lent armies to one another on a regular basis.

But Mikari grinned. "We have no king or queen," she said. "We serve the people, in honor of Kyoshi. I hear the king of Shiyokima was less than pleased, to have half his palace guards gone; but the head of the order over there convinced him that it would be wise to allow those of us who wished it to assist our friends to the north."

"That must have been a fun conversation," Sokka said, and Suki laughed.

"But we ought to be asking you the same question," another girl said, propping her helmet against her hip. "The last time we saw you, you were speeding north in a canoe with the Avatar." She looked them over, eyes lingering on Yue's white hair, Toph's green clothes, Professor Zei's curious expression.

"We've picked up a few people," Suki said. "I can't tell you everything, not now—we need to get to Ba Sing Se as soon as we can."

Mikari and the other girl exchanged glances. "That could be difficult," Mikari said.

"Oh, no, not _difficulty_," Sokka said dramatically, throwing his hands in the air. "Whatever will we do?"

But Suki didn't laugh this time. She was looking at Mikari's face, and after a moment she began to frown. "How difficult?" she said.

"We'll let you inside," Mikari said, "and you'll see for yourself."

* * *

><p>Zuko hated everything about this place. It was dank, obviously, being caged under thick stone that only opened in the direction of the water, and chilly after the sunshine outside; and, worst of all, it was horrendously crowded.<p>

It was wretched to be forced to rub elbows with hundreds of unwashed Earth Kingdom peasants, and to add frost over snow, it meant Uncle wasn't going to explain anything until they were out of here.

As Uncle had promised, the queen of Lannang had indeed let them go unharmed. She'd given them a scroll with her royal seal on it, too, in return for no tangible gain whatsoever that Zuko could see. To fail to understand what happened around you was to ask for pain and misfortune, Zuko knew; but the second they'd left the city gates, Uncle had turned to him and touched a finger to his mouth warningly.

"I know you have many questions, my nephew," he had said, "but now is not the time," and he had tipped his head meaningfully to the crowds of people streaming around them.

And Zuko had accepted it, at least temporarily: if Uncle was going to tell him he had some kind of dark hold over an Earth Kingdom queen, or was involved in a secret conspiracy—for Father?—that spanned continents, a road full of Earth Kingdom citizens was not the place to do it.

So he'd kept his mouth shut all the way to the North Yellow Sea, and it had gained him nothing.

"Patience," Uncle Iroh said, and Zuko looked up. They were perhaps three people down the line from the woman dispensing ferry tickets, but Uncle wasn't watching her argue with the weeping peasant in front; Uncle was watching him. "The time will come."

Zuko said nothing, and did his best not to grind his teeth.

There was a space of a few feet that stayed clear, as if by magic, around the woman and her ticket counter, but beyond that the bustle and press was incredible; by the time he and Uncle were next in line, Zuko had been elbowed upwards of ten times, and three separate people had stumbled into him. So when something short and a little pudgy struck him on the shin, it seemed like nothing, until Zuko looked down.

It was a boy, some peasant's child who should never have been set down in the first place. He had rebounded off Zuko's knee perhaps half a step, and was more occupied with rubbing his dirty nose than with the person he'd so thoughtlessly run into.

He was still too close—half a step wasn't far for a child that small, after all—and Zuko leaned down to catch him by the collar of his shirt and redirect him at precisely the same moment that the woman with the tickets dismissed the man ahead of Uncle with a wave.

"Papers?" she said sharply, as Zuko hooked a finger in the child's shirt.

Uncle confessed that they had none, and she nearly dismissed them outright before he produced Queen Miansun's seal; but Zuko missed the rest. The boy was apparently incapable of comprehending directional cues: Zuko tugged him sideways to face the crowd and pushed, but he only turned around again the moment Zuko let him go.

"Jin!" someone shouted, not all that far away, and then the crowd split briefly, just as Zuko, exasperated, caught the child by the wrist.

"Four tickets, then?" the ticket woman said.

Zuko blinked and looked up. The crowd had split because a girl had elbowed it apart—a girl who was now staring at him uncertainly, her hand wrapped around the grubby child's other arm.

"Eight, I think," Uncle said, very calmly, and Zuko turned his head to ask him what he meant and came face-to-face with a vaguely familiar woman.

Of course—he should have recognized the boy right away. It was _that_ child, the one who'd thought Zuko was too stupid to use a broom, and the woman who'd made them sleep on her floor, and—wait. Eight?

"Uncle," Zuko said, but he was already too late. Uncle had put his hand on the familiar woman's shoulder—he wasn't standing close enough for it to be genuinely improper, but it wasn't exactly making them look like strangers.

"Eight," Uncle repeated, and the ticket woman peered over the counter at him and then brought her stamp down like a hammer, eight times.

.*.*.*.

The boy was looking away, staring openmouthed at the old man; Qingying took the opportunity to yank Jin away and lift him up. She hadn't meant for him to get away, she had only taken her eyes off him for a moment. But that was how it always happened. He had been so good this morning, had sat still for so long waiting for Aunt to come back—she should have been expecting him to take off.

He didn't seem hurt, at least; he grinned at her, gaptoothed, and she hefted him a little higher and rubbed the dirt off his nose with the edge of her sleeve.

She'd have to apologize to Aunt, of course. Bad enough that Aunt had had to move in to take care of them after—after everything. Then their parents' house had burned to the ground, everything gone except what they'd grabbed before they'd gone out the door; Lan had cried nearly the whole way here, and Qingying had tried so hard, but Aunt had still woken twice in the night and had to help soothe her.

And now this. Lucky, that Jin had happened to run into the man from dinner at just the right moment, or they'd surely have proven beyond a doubt they were too great a burden for one kindly aunt to handle alone.

Lan was only a step behind her, and Zhiyang was already clutching her sleeve, his fingers narrowly missing the blot Qingying had just rubbed off of Jin's nose. Yanhong, always so bold, had rushed up to the man from dinner and clasped his hand, blinking solemnly up at the ticket woman.

"Eight," the ticket woman said briskly, unaffected by Yanhong's enormous eyes; and the man from dinner took the stamped tickets from her with a bow and a smile.

"Have you lost your mind?" the boy hissed, when they were far enough from the ticket woman to avoid drawing her attention.

"Please, nephew," the man said, "we have company now." He turned to Aunt and bowed, still holding Yanhong's hand. "You must forgive Li; we have traveled very far, and it wears on him."

Li—yes, of course, Qingying remembered now. Li, and his uncle was Mushi. They had left before the fire, but they must have gone around the mountains instead of through—little wonder, if neither of them was an Earthbender. Aunt had been lucky, to find a caravan for their family to travel with that had crossed the Great Pass with bending; otherwise, it probably would have taken them half again as long to get here.

Aunt bowed in return. "You have done us a very great favor, though I do not expect that you remember us all," she said, with a small smile. "I am Wan Liu; I suspect that you may at least recall little Jin, and the one whose hand you have there is Yanhong."

"Hello, my dear," Mushi said soberly, bending to look Yanhong in the eye.

"Hi," Yanhong said readily. "Can I touch your beard?"

Mushi laughed. "Of course," he said, "though I hope you will refrain from pulling."

"I'll try," Yanhong said, frank. "It's so much longer than Baba's—"

"_Yanhong_," Qingying said, and ducked down to grab her sister's wrist in her free hand.

"Well, it is," Yanhong said; but she quieted after, and let Mushi's hand go.

Mushi looked at Qingying for a moment—not angrily, or even chastisingly, but something about it made her want to turn away, to hide her face and let herself cry like Lan.

"We cannot thank you enough," Aunt said, like nothing had happened; and Mushi smiled.

"It was a little thing," he said. "Fortune has favored us—"

Li snorted.

"—and there are so many in need," Mushi continued placidly. "After the fine meal you gave us, I am grateful we have the opportunity to assist you in return. I am only sorry we cannot do more."

It was strange—he said it to them, but he sounded like he meant it for everyone, like he was sorry he couldn't pull another scroll from his pocket and get a hundred more people on the boat. Like it wasn't already a gift beyond measuring, that the six of them could have tickets when some people had been stuck on the western bank for months.

"Come," Aunt said to him, "to the docks. I believe the ferry will be loading soon."

* * *

><p>"You weren't kidding," Suki said, and Katara bet it would have come out hushed if it weren't for the noise.<p>

They were pressed almost to the wall, inside—Mikari had gotten two Earthbender guards to open the rock for them, with a technique that looked perfectly viable to Katara but had made Toph snort dismissively through her nose. The ferry landing was absolutely packed with people, and there was so much stamping and shouting and shoving that Toph was grimacing from the vibrations.

"Tickets are just about impossible to get, if you don't have papers," Mikari said, and she looked almost angry for a second. "There are people who were here the day we came who haven't gotten one yet. There's only half as many ferries running as usual, with the Fire Nation in the South Sea, and the Serpent's Pass is hardly safe even at night. We escort people across, when we can, but—" Her mouth flattened unhappily. "There's barely enough of us to guard this place already. Someone was killed in their sleep last week for their ticket, waiting for the morning boat."

"For a _ticket_?" Sokka repeated, incredulous.

"It's quite a long way around the Yellow Seas, without the ferries or the Pass," Professor Zei said knowingly. "Whether you go north or south. The Tai San leaves the South Yellow Sea through a series of short waterfalls—the 'white silk curtains', as Qing Ta once referred to them in her _Song for Plums Along a River_. The first ford is at least a hundred miles to the south. And to the north, why, a traveler would have to reverse nearly to the borders of Jansung, and cross five separate rivers just to reach the eastern plain. The ferries must be by far the safer option—"

"Except when they aren't," Sokka said.

"Well, it wasn't the _ferry_," Toph said. "It was the murderer with the knife or whatever."

"Hold on, hold on," Katara said, holding up her hands until they both went quiet; and then she pointed at Mikari. "The Serpent's Pass? What is that?"

Mikari blinked and glanced at Suki, and then shook her head ruefully. "It's so strange to have you back," she said, "I keep forgetting you were ever gone at all. Of course you don't know."

"Don't suppose you've studied it," Sokka muttered, glancing at Professor Zei.

He hadn't meant it as a real question, Katara could tell; but of course Professor Zei took it for one, and cleared his throat.

"Not as such," he said, sheepish. "But I am sure your friend is right: I imagine it is a route fraught with danger, if the Fire Nation is indeed patrolling the South Yellow Sea. I suspect they must look on Earth Kingdom citizens attempting a crossing as, well. Something along the lines of target practice, most likely. The Serpent's Pass runs between the—to be entirely accurate, the halves of what was once a single sea. Legend has it that it was constructed by a hundred of King Jang Yao's finest Earthbenders, to provide an easier path for trade caravans from the west."

Target practice. Katara resisted the urge to put her face in her hands. As though what they really needed right now was more people to attack them.

"Actually, as long as there aren't any scorpion wasps," Sokka said, "it sounds pretty okay."

But Mikari was shaking her head. "We can't take you—there aren't enough of us to spare an escort today—"

"I think we can handle it," Toph said, crossing her arms.

Mikari eyed them. "Even if you do go that way, you shouldn't start out until nightfall. The Fire Nation still patrols at night, but there's less chance that they'll notice you if you leave after dark."

Katara bit her lip, and something in her stomach clenched sharply. They were so close—they'd crossed the mountains _and_ the desert, and Ba Sing Se and its king were only a sea away. They couldn't afford to stand around waiting for the sun to set. "Then we'll have to try to get tickets."

"Knifed if we do, fried if we don't," Toph murmured, almost singsong, and for a moment Katara wanted to punch her—did she seriously think Katara didn't realize she was leading them all into danger?

Mikari was looking at her sympathetically. "It won't be easy," she said. "I know you're the Avatar, I remember. But unless you're planning to bring this place down on our heads as a demonstration, I'm not sure they'll believe you."

"They have to," Katara said. "We need to get to Ba Sing Se."

Yue was looking at her sharply, which was how she knew it had come out a little too harsh; but she couldn't bring herself to apologize for it. Despite everyone's reassurances on the way to Gaoling, and the good luck that had let them find Toph, she still couldn't picture herself the confident master of four elements by no later than the end of summer. But an eclipse—an eclipse would drain the Fire Nation's power away, if only for a little while. An eclipse meant maybe they wouldn't _need_ a fully-realized Avatar to bring down the Fire Lord. And every day that slipped away from them lowered the chance that they'd find an eclipse that would come at the right time.

Mikari's uniform bought them a little space, and she led them through the crowd until she could point out the ticket stall over the sea of heads. "Best of luck," she said, dipping her head to Katara; but her expression wasn't optimistic.

A good hour later, when they finally reached the head of the ticket line, Katara could see why.

"Papers," the scowling ticket woman said.

Katara glanced at Sokka, who stared back with wide eyes and then shrugged helplessly.

"Papers?" Katara said. Mikari had said something about papers, but surely they only needed to prove they could pay for the tickets. "I don't—"

"Family identification," Professor Zei murmured. "Some of the Earth Kingdoms have come to rely on them quite heavily during the war, to make it more difficult for the Fire Nation to infiltrate. But, of course, the system that has developed does not favor those citizens who cannot afford to be added to the official register, and likely would not be able to read any papers they did receive. Or those, like you, who have had no reason or opportunity to obtain them."

"I don't suppose you know anybody who could whip some up?" Sokka said.

The ticket woman cleared her throat. "Application for official papers is certainly possible," she said, "though of course it will take time for the paperwork to go through, and there are fees. We will need proof of identity, a family seal—"

Katara glanced at Sokka. A family seal? Did they even have a family seal? And proof of identity—were they supposed to go back to the south and drag Mother all the way up here? Not that they'd take Mother's word for it, Katara thought sourly, since Mother wouldn't have proof of identity either.

Sokka made a face, and turned to Professor Zei. "Did you have to do this to get yours?" he demanded.

Professor Zei looked abashed. "Well, I had the dean of the university to vouch for me," he said, and drew a folded paper from his outer robe—a speckling of sand fell from the creases. "Papers are required of University employees."

"My parents got mine when I was about a day old," Toph said cheerfully. "They don't make you show them at home, most of the time, but nobody goes anywhere without them." She pulled her face into a caricature of arrogance, eyelashes fluttering, and said, "Imagine the _scandal_—caught in the streets without papers!"

The ticket woman cleared her throat sternly. "One set each," she enunciated. "No papers, no ticket."

"Each?" Katara said. "But couldn't you—"

"—make an exception?" the ticket woman droned. "Are you the king of anything?"

"Well, no," Katara said.

"The queen of anything?"

"Random spiritual visitations?" Sokka suggested.

"Anything official," the ticket woman clarified, without even cracking a smile.

"No," Katara admitted, and then shifted uncomfortably. If there were ever a time to say it, she told herself, it was absolutely now. "But I am the Avatar."

The ticket woman raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Do you have any idea how often I hear that one?" she said, and then, "Don't answer, it was rhetorical. No papers, no ticket—no exceptions, unless you can show a royal seal."

"But we have to get to Ba Sing Se—" Suki began.

"I hear that one even more often," the ticket woman said, and she looked down at them unflinchingly from behind the stall. "Your grandmother's dying; your children are sick; getting on that ferry is a matter of life or death." She shook her head. "No papers, no ticket."

.*.*.*.

Obviously she couldn't see it, but Toph could still totally tell that Katara was looking at her—when Katara had things she was feeling judgey about, her staring got _weight_.

Toph did have her papers on her—the finest rice paper, Mama wouldn't have settled for less, and she'd probably cringe if she knew Toph had stuffed them in her pack and let them wrinkle. Toph could get a ticket, no problem, and that had to be why Katara was giving her the judgey eyes.

Sure, Katara was annoying, but that didn't mean Toph was going to leave her on the western bank and sail off to Ba Sing Se with the dorky professor. Seriously.

"Well, I guess that's it, then," Toph said loudly, and turned away from the ticket stall. It was ridiculous, how crowded it was in here—it was almost as bad as the sand, vibrations from every direction blurring everything into fuzz. But everybody was knocking into each other anyway, so Toph figured it didn't matter if she whacked a few people on her way past. "Don't suppose you could ferry us over yourself, sugar queen."

"I wouldn't need to," Katara said, in a tone Toph chose to think of as abashedly defensive, "if you could raise us a bridge out of the rock."

"Um, even if you could hold it together the whole way across," Sokka said, "I'd really rather not ride on ice, if that's okay." His wince was so exaggerated Toph could feel it even over the fuzz of a thousand people moving. "Just thinking about it is giving me frostbite again."

Toph cleared her throat loudly.

"You didn't get frostbite the first time," Katara said.

"It won't give us frostbite this time, either," Suki said, "if it won't work."

Toph sighed, and cleared her throat again. Seeing probably came in handy, but sometimes it made people really bad at using their ears. "Um, hello? Somebody already did raise us a bridge out of the rock, remember?" She turned in approximately Katara's direction, and raised her eyebrows. "I get it, you don't want to wait; but we're not getting tickets, and even if we did we'd still have to wait for a ferry." She shrugged. "I hate boats anyway. Let's walk."

Sokka shifted his feet and bumped Katara sideways—with his elbow, Toph was guessing. "No scorpion wasps," he said invitingly. "I mean, sure, 'Serpent's Pass' isn't the most, um, pleasant name, and I'm not looking forward to getting fireballs shot at me. Like, more of them than have already been shot at me. But there'll be water all over the place for you and Yue, and Toph can throw rocks right back at them, if it comes to that."

Mikari didn't seem all that surprised to see them when they worked their way back over to the wall; Toph heard her let out a breath, resigned. She'd been hoping they would get what they wanted, Toph guessed, but she hadn't really thought it would happen. Toph couldn't exactly blame her for her pessimism.

"You'll be taking the Serpent's Pass," she said, "won't you?"

"Yeah," Sokka said, "it's kind of looking that way."

"I don't—I don't want to burden you, Avatar," Mikari said, and Toph could feel the dirt tremble under Katara's feet like she had swallowed a laugh.

"Yeah, sure, we'll take somebody with us," Toph said, before anybody could ask any stupid questions. It was so obvious: they were crossing the Pass and Mikari couldn't, and she felt bad about it. She'd come up here to help people—and she probably was, except maybe for that one guy who'd gotten knifed, but sometimes everything you could do still didn't feel like enough. Actually, Mikari was kind of like Katara. Except way less annoying about it.

Everybody was quiet for a second, a shuffle on the ground like they'd turned to look at her, and Toph crossed her arms and let out an intentionally gusty sigh.

"It's totally what she was going to ask, and we're already going to do it—why wouldn't we take a few more people along?"

She hesitated after she said it for a second; she wasn't trying to set off Katara's guilt issues or whatever, and if Katara got some funny idea in her head and tried to take like two hundred people with them, Toph was going to have to put her foot down. But Katara was perfectly still against the ground—staring at Toph, Toph assumed, and immediately made a face. What, was she surprised? Like she'd been ready to give Toph the judgey eyes again—like she'd thought she would have to talk her into it? Toph was going to do her best to avoid dying for anybody, but that didn't mean she was _that_ selfish.

Toph sniffed and turned back to about where Mikari was standing. "You got somebody particular in mind?"

.*.*.*.

Mikari did, as it turned out; she looked around, like she wanted to be sure no one was paying much attention, and then she led them along the wall of the ferry station, until they'd rounded most of the curve and had come near the water.

Looking out, Katara could see something in the distance—one of the ferries, no doubt, coming back empty from the east to fill itself with ticketholders and make another trip across the North Yellow Sea. She tried to picture the map, and to remember what Professor Zei had said: the ferry station had to be on the coast of the North Yellow Sea, and that unevenness across the water to the south must be the Serpent's Pass. Maybe this station had had a twin to the south, or perhaps the ferries had once had Earthbenders to part the Serpent's Pass and then close it up again behind them. Before the war, that is—if the kingdom of Ba Chang had Earthbenders to spare for ferry trips now, Katara would be surprised to hear it. Having some assigned to open the station for people at all was probably taxing their forces as it was.

"My friends," Mikari said ahead of her, and bowed, and Katara turned to look.

There were two people in front of Mikari—only two. The man looked younger than Professor Zei but older than Sokka, and he bowed in return, deeply and politely. The woman didn't even rise, but Katara could see why: her belly was rounded outward distinctly. Katara had seen her youngest cousins born, she'd even helped Gran-Gran with Aunt Mitika, so she knew enough to guess this woman was maybe six months along. Aunt Mitika was built like a bull tiger seal, wide and muscled; even at six months she'd barely showed, and had still gone hunting. This woman was much thinner, which fleeing across the Earth Kingdoms probably hadn't helped, and much more obvious.

"Forgive me for my rudeness," she said, and smiled at them faintly. "I would rise, but I am not my steadiest today."

Mikari touched the woman's shoulder gently, and smiled back—she hadn't just been being polite, Katara realized, she really did consider them friends. "Then you should save your strength for tonight," Mikari said. "I've found someone to take you across."

Both of them looked at her with sudden sharpness, renewed attention; she must have talked to them often, and rarely been able to give them any good news. "Across the Pass?" the woman said. "Truly?"

"They are—benders," Mikari said, obviously temporizing—talking about the Avatar with so many people around would definitely be a mistake, and Katara had to admit that it wasn't quite a lie anyway. She could certainly bend. "They'll be able to keep you safe."

"Whoa, hey," Sokka said, before Mikari could say anything else. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy walking across a sea and being attacked by the Fire Nation with some total strangers, but can we, you know, trade names first? Life stories, maybe—like, the short version?"

"Of course," the woman said. "Please forgive us. I am Hok Suan; this is Eng Pin." She glanced up at Mikari, so briefly Katara almost missed it, and then tilted her chin up, just a little. "He is my husband."

They'd done what Sokka'd asked, or started to, and it was only fair to return the favor—but Katara had barely opened her mouth before Toph snorted.

"Liar," she said.

"Toph!"

"She is!" Toph said. "She's sitting down, she's touching the ground from her hands to her ankles—it's not like it's hard to tell." She sighed loudly. "What, you can't see it?"

Katara glanced at Hok Suan. She could see something, at least. Hok Suan had gone still on the stone, legs curled under her tensely. She had tucked one hand through Eng Pin's, near her shoulder, and her knuckles were tight as knots; and the other hand was over her belly, defensive. And she was staring at Katara, blank-faced, waiting to see what she would say.

"Well, sort of," Sokka said, "since she's not really looking at you like you're wrong—but I don't understand—"

"I told you," Toph said, "she's touching the ground. There's two heartbeats; but one of them's a lot—bigger than the other one. Lying makes people nervous, and nervous people's hearts pound."

"No wonder you couldn't get papers," Suki said to Hok Suan, gentle and commiserating.

"But they're having a child," Katara said blankly. "Doesn't that count? I mean, isn't that the same thing?"

The silence that followed was eloquent.

"Apparently not," Sokka murmured.

Professor Zei cleared his throat. "If I may," he said. "The fabled journals of Pei Zhang Jin are a highly esteemed portion of the university library's collection, and an excellent record of her journey to the far south—the first ever undertaken by anyone from the Earth Kingdoms—"

"Blah blah blah booky stuff," Toph said. "What are you talking about, Katara?"

Katara looked at Sokka, who shrugged back, and then, helplessly, at Aang. He was floating, blue and puzzled, by the wall next to Mikari, and he shrugged, too. "I lived at a temple with thousands of monks," he said. "I didn't really worry about that stuff much."

"We had feasts, sometimes," Yue said slowly. "When somebody had accepted a necklace, and people had decided to—stay together, and have children."

"That's it?" Toph said. "But how'd they pick? I mean, didn't they have to—get a matchmaker, and give gifts, and pick a lucky day, and have a procession, and do a ceremony, and put on red—"

"No!" Katara said. "How would you even have time for that? Why would you need to—everybody _knows_. I mean—" She faltered. Of course everybody knew, at home—even before the warriors had gone, there had been, what? A hundred people? A hundred and fifty? She thought of the city Gran-Gran said had been there once; of Kanjusuk, and Jindao, and all those districts and walls Dai Kun had led them through in Hansing to take them to his mother's house. How did people even meet each other, in places that large? Nobody would know anyone.

"... I'm moving to the South Pole when this is over," Toph said.

"It matters here," Hok Suan said quietly. Katara looked at her; she had relaxed, listening to them talk, and so had Eng Pin, but the hand she had curled around his was still holding on so very tightly. "It's important. Your friend is right—both of your friends. We are not married, we—could not; we cannot get papers that match, and a woman like this—" She touched her curving stomach gently with her free hand. "I cannot get papers alone, with no husband to vouch for me and no relatives."

"No relatives?" Katara said. That was almost as weird.

Hok Suan tilted her chin up again—defiance, that was what lent it that sharpness that Katara hadn't recognized the first time. "None who would claim me now," she said.

"Well," Toph said, and clapped her hands together. "I guess you really are coming with us."

"You're the one who said she was a liar!" Sokka said.

Toph shrugged. "She was—because she thought we wouldn't take them. I mean, if you want to make her right, go ahead." She put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows, waiting.

Katara couldn't help it; she laughed. "Watch out," she said, "or I'm going to start thinking you're nice."


	16. The Serpent's Pass, Part 2

It was so strange, to stand at the Serpent's Pass at last, with her feet on the stone and water to either side. Hok Suan had spent so many days staring over the sea at the ragged silhouette of it, imagining what it would be like; she had almost stopped believing it would ever happen. Sometimes it had seemed like they would be trapped in the ferry station forever—like someone would come in another hundred years when the war was long over, and find them still waiting.

The sun had already set, and the moon had been and gone by midday; it would not rise again for hours, and would cast little light when it did. They were as safe as they could hope to be, even with the lighted decks of Fire Nation warships shining to the south. They would never have a better chance.

Eng Pin touched her elbow gently, and she looked at him and realized only then that she hadn't moved.

They had been lucky already. It was the work of the Hundred-Year War, that anyone would cross a well-traveled piece of the Earth Kingdoms without dying and call it luck—and be right to do it. They had been lucky to find each other in the first place, lucky to get away, lucky to live; they had been lucky to find Mikari. And now she had found them a group of benders—benders, who somehow had no tickets either and were willing to cross the Pass.

"Everybody's got everything, right?" said Sokka, grinning—young, they were all young, but then Hok Suan wasn't so very much older. And wars made everyone old.

Eng Pin's fingers curled around her arm, warm and sure, and she fumbled her other hand over to squeeze his wrist. She'd already left so much behind, nothing in her pack now but whatever had been closest to hand when they'd run; but even if they dumped that on the western shore and she never saw it again, they would find a way. She had what she needed, whether there was a pack on her back or not.

If Eng Pin could hear what she was thinking, he'd roll his eyes and make a face at her for being so sentimental. Hok Suan grinned.

"I think we're ready," she said, and the boy's sister smiled at her.

"So let's get a move on," said the Earthbender girl. "Aren't we trying not to get set on fire, here?"

* * *

><p>The irritating woman hadn't been wrong about the ferry, or at least not entirely: it hadn't been at the dock when they'd finally worked their way over, but everyone else with a ticket had been.<p>

"Is it always like this?" Uncle said, when the sun sank and there was still no ferry. The dock had filled in behind them; already one man had run out of space and tumbled into the water, and had had to be fetched out by Earth Kingdom soldiers.

Wan Liu looked at him gravely. "No matter the number of tickets they dispense or do not dispense," she said, "the ferries cannot be made larger than they are. Two hundred seats, I hear, and they only allow so many to sleep on the deck—the crew must have room to operate."

She was clinging tightly to her grubby children—or nieces, nephews, whatever they were—but she almost didn't need to; they were pressed close together by the crowd, and Zuko doubted any of them could have gotten more than a foot away even if they'd been trying to. Which they weren't. The older girl was hanging onto the woman's hand just as hard, and onto the boy with the other; the little girl who was so bizarrely entranced with Uncle's beard had let Uncle pick her up and then fallen asleep on his shoulder; and Zuko had given up trying to get the presumptuous little boy to let go of Zuko's trousers. Thanks to Uncle, they were stuck with these people for at least the length of a ferry ride, and annoying as it was, the boy would be far more frustrating to deal with if he were crying.

At least the cloth was already travel-worn; Jin's stupid dirty hands wouldn't make it any worse.

If Uncle had had his way, no doubt they would have stepped to the side and let every beggar in the Earth Kingdoms get on first. But by the time the ferry came, a fat wooden Earth Kingdom barge that anyone with sense should have been ashamed to sail, they were packed so tightly they could do nothing but edge forward in pace with the rest of the crowd. The soldiers with the ferry were strict, and let only a few on at a time—the lessons of experience, Wan Liu told them, after the first few tramplings.

Whatever the limit was, they fell within it, and were safely aboard long before the ferry horn began to blow. But Uncle could not be thwarted in all things; he vanished briefly once they had shuffled on, and returned with a ridiculous smile upon his face. "Come, my nephew," he said, "to the deck! Do not worry," and this he directed to Wan Liu. "We have traded a berth for decking, my nephew and I, but you and the children still have spaces."

"But can't we sleep outside?" said the little girl.

"Stars!" said Jin, stupidly, and clung to Zuko's leg.

Wan Liu laughed, as though this idiocy were charming instead of baffling. "Little Jin does have a point," she said to Uncle, "the sky is clear. My old bones are not fond of rain, but if there are clouds tomorrow perhaps we will find another place."

They had somehow managed to find the only family in the Earth Kingdom just as crazy as Uncle. Surely, Zuko thought, there could not be more than one.

It was not hard to find someone willing to trade space on the deck for berths below, of course, and there was barely time to argue before Uncle was settling against the ferry's side with a sigh, as the boat-horn blew one last time. Water began to churn below them, splashing audibly, and the little girl who was still clutching Uncle's neck yawned, wakened a little by the noise.

"Hush, dear, it is only the sea," Uncle said, very gently, and the girl let him lower her to the deck and turned her face into his chest.

Jin was looking up at Zuko from somewhere around his knees; Zuko let his mouth flatten the way it wanted to, and raised his eyebrows. He had sunk low, so very low, but not so far that he would serve as a peasant child's pillow.

It was possible Jin was somewhat less stupid than he looked: he let Zuko's trousers go at last, and wobbled off to where Wan Liu had seated herself, on Uncle's other side.

They were on a boat, sleeping outdoors even though it was at last not their only option, headed into the very heart of the Earth Kingdoms. Zuko sighed. At least there was nowhere to start a fire—Uncle could not make tea.

* * *

><p>Katara was expecting to get tired, but the further they walked, the further she wanted to walk. It felt like any moment they might see the walls of Ba Sing Se in the distance, and then the weight would all be off her shoulders—Professor Zei would take them to the observatory, they'd find an eclipse, and they'd take word of it right to the king. The king—the king of Ba Sing Se, the king of <em>Ba Chang<em>; it was the largest kingdom on the continent. Surely he'd be pleased to hear the news, he would gather his generals and make a plan for his armies and hardly need her help at all.

It wasn't precisely easy, walking the Serpent's Pass. It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to keep the trade road in repair, and the Fire Nation taking the South Sea probably hadn't helped; the path was crumbling in places, stone scorched and splintered on the south side by Fire Nation catapults.

But they managed even in the dark, especially with Toph's help. Katara almost wished she'd stop proving she was so useful; it was hard to resent her properly.

They hadn't exactly gotten very far with Earthbending that morning—Katara probably should have realized it would end in them throwing rocks at each other. They'd managed to work together in the face of a swarm of killer scorpion wasps, and they maybe didn't hate each other; that didn't mean they were _friends_. Yue had been skilled, but also patient, forgiving, willing to stand there and go through a sequence again and again, explain over and over. Katara had had no idea how much she'd relied on that until she'd tried out a hesitant punch and Toph had snorted and called her an idiot. Really, nobody could blame her for kicking a rock at Toph's shoe! And it had all gone downhill from there.

Well, maybe somebody could blame her. Katara thought of Roku's face, stern and sober in the warm sunlight on that not-quite-real mountaintop, and grimaced a little. He'd probably be with Aang on this one: _transcend_.

But they'd cross the Pass—they'd cross the Pass and get to Ba Sing Se, and the king would know what to do. She'd have plenty of time to work with Toph then, no matter how irritating she was. She'd learn to Earthbend, and they'd defeat the Fire Nation, and everything would be fine.

They just had to get to Ba Sing Se.

"So, uh, it's looking a little—dawn-y, up there."

Katara glanced up: Sokka was looking ahead, toward Ba Sing Se and the east. The sky had been a little lighter in that direction all night, from the lanterns of the city; but it was even lighter now, and growing steadily more so.

"Little bit," Suki agreed.

"The outcropping," Hok Suan said.

It took Katara a moment to figure out what she meant, because when she looked back she mostly felt guilty—Hok Suan had kept up perfectly, but she was starting to lean a little more heavily on Eng Pin, and she looked exhausted.

But she was also tilting her chin toward the east, where there was a rise in the rock on the Pass's southern side—enough to hide them from any Fire Nation ships that might pass by as they patrolled. "We should be safe there," she said, "until it is evening again."

Katara bit her lip. They'd gotten so far, there couldn't be _that_ much left to go, and she kind of wanted to kick things when she thought about wasting a whole day just sitting behind a rock, waiting for it to get dark. She glanced sideways at Aang, who was drifting a couple paces past where the Pass dropped off into the ocean: he was looking at Hok Suan. And he was right to, Katara told herself firmly. If she'd been alone, she might not have stopped—but she wasn't. She rubbed a hand across her face. If she was going to be selfish and annoying all the time, she might as well just change her name to Toph already.

The outcropping wasn't all that far, but it grew still lighter as they walked, and the east was going red and gold with sunrise when Professor Zei, at the front, slowed suddenly. Katara had been watching her feet and trying not to let herself think resentful thoughts, but at the change in pace, she looked up again.

"That will make this slightly more difficult," Yue said.

They'd already squeezed by half a dozen places where the Pass had obviously been hit, the path growing narrow where stone had broken off and fallen into the sea; but here, there was no path left at all. The Pass hadn't crumbled entirely, of course. But there was a ragged, rocky drop, and a sharp rise opposite before everything smoothed out again.

"It's not—so bad," Sokka said, and then paused. "I mean, uh—"

"If you are not pregnant," Hok Suan said calmly. "Forgive me; I doubt I'll be able to climb it."

"Psh," Toph said, and lifted one foot, only to slam it down against the ground. She had her head tilted to the side, her mouth quirked; she was feeling how the stone moved, Katara realized, using her Earthbending and the vibrations from her foot to sort out where the edge was. "It's not that wide. I got it." She sniffed and rolled her shoulders. "If you can't do it yourself, sugar queen, you can at least watch. Maybe you'll learn something that way."

Katara pressed her lips tight so she wouldn't shout, and tried not to grind her teeth too much.

If you ignored the obnoxious bits, after all, Toph was probably right; so she did watch, intently. Everybody did, which was why the first fireball took them completely by surprise.

Toph had set her feet down hard—_see, sugar queen? like a rock, nothing can move you_—and squared her shoulders, and then shoved outward sharply with both hands. The stone had followed her, rock splintering outward into a rough bridge; it had crossed the gap cleanly, and slammed into the other side with a crunch. Hok Suan had beamed at her gratefully, taken Eng Pin's hand, and gotten about four paces across, and Yue had set both feet on Toph's bridge—and then, abruptly, everything shook.

Katara stumbled and flinched; it was suddenly bright, too, but the sun was still below the horizon, and the sun rising wouldn't make the Pass tremble like that. Toph had borrowed the bridge-rock from underneath them somewhere, but she couldn't have destabilized everything so quickly, surely?

But as soon as Katara caught her balance and looked up, she had her answer. The south face of Toph's bridge was burning, covered in the sticky flaming pitch the Fire Nation used to coat everything they lobbed from their catapults—and to the south, over the sunrise-pink water, there was the dark bulk of a battleship.

"Oh," Sokka said, "that is so, so bad—so very, very bad, oh—"

There was a light on the deck—another fireball being lit, no doubt, and Hok Suan and Eng Pin had both tumbled down, though thankfully neither of them had been thrown from the bridge. The ankle of Eng Pin's trousers had come alight, from a stray spark or a spatter of pitch, but even as Katara shouted, Yue was pulling a handful of water all the way up from the sea to douse it.

"Get them across!" Katara yelled again, and Suki must have heard, because she grabbed Sokka's arm in one hand and Professor Zei's in the other, and lunged for the bridge.

Yue was helping Hok Suan up; Aang had sped off somewhere, but wherever he was, he was safer than any of them; and Toph was grimacing, hands still outstretched, grinding her heels down into the stone like it was sand. There was another rumbling sound, but the Fire Nation battleship hadn't fired again—it was coming from Toph's bridge. Katara could see the rock splintering, cracking under Yue's foot—

"No you _don't_," Toph spat, pushing outward as though there were something pressing back against her hands besides air; and the bridge crunched forward another handspan, the sides of the crack pressed firmly back together.

Katara looked at the battleship, hesitating. It was still far away, but even from here she could tell it was huge, far larger than Prince Zuko's ship, and the catapults were heavier. She'd been able to raise a pretty big wave in the Avatar state, and an even bigger one when she'd been the ocean—but she wasn't either right now, and she wouldn't be able to swamp a ship that big by herself. Maybe with Yue's help; but Yue had an arm under Hok Suan's elbow and was trying not to flinch away from the heat of the pitch still burning just beside and beneath her.

There was a sound, a distant boom, and the light that had been flickering on the battleship's deck abruptly grew less tiny. Katara yanked upward, panicked, and the second fireball roared into a wall of seawater that hadn't been half thick enough—but the water came down first, and dragged the fireball with it, so that it only slammed into the side of the Pass instead of hitting anyone on the top.

There was a loud crackling of stone at the impact; Katara fell sideways and scraped both hands, and when she pushed herself up again she could see the bridge had started to buckle sideways. But Toph didn't move—she'd sunk herself down to the ankles, now, and she made a face at the bridge like its weakness was personally offending her. "Pathetic," she yelled at it, and clenched her hands into fists; and it groaned and swayed, but it didn't fall apart.

Yue had grabbed some of the seawater on its way down, and used it to shield Hok Suan and Eng Pin from the splatter of flaming pitch that had followed. The three of them were nearly to the far side, nearly safe—but the water, the impact, or both had shoved Professor Zei off his feet, and Suki and Sokka were on their knees a foot from where the bridge was buckling, trying to haul him back up.

"Pull it together!" Toph snapped.

"What—"

Toph huffed, blowing a little loose hair back out of her face. "I can feel you freaking out from here," she said, "and in case you haven't noticed, this isn't exactly the moment! Flood them, capsize them—"

"I can't! The ship's too big, I'd never—"

"You don't have to," Aang shouted, and Katara cut herself off and whirled around.

He was zooming up from the south, blue face aglow—he hadn't wasted any time panicking, he'd just gone straight for the ship.

"What?" she said belatedly.

"You don't have to," Aang repeated. "It's barely dawn, and you heard Mikari, it's been a while since they've been able to get anybody across the pass. They weren't expecting us, half of them are still asleep—they've only got enough soldiers on duty to run one catapult. It'll be more, in a few minutes, but a few minutes is all we need—"

"Well, great, but I can't freeze a catapult from here!" Katara said.

"Then _squish it_," Toph said. "I have to hang on to this, and I can't even see where the ship is anyway—it's got to be you."

"This morning I couldn't bend _gravel_—"

"There's nobody else!" Toph sounded like she would have started tearing her hair out, if she'd had a hand to spare. "We're all going to die—isn't that the kind of thing you find motivating? Come on! You just have to—not move, be a wall." She shook her head. "It shouldn't be that hard for you, you're so good at impersonating one already—you're a wall, and if you're not a good enough one we're all doomed, so _be a really good one_."

.*.*.*.

Toph could feel it, when Katara settled her feet against the earth—her stance was terrible, but Toph wasn't going to be able to fix it right then, and telling Katara about it would just make her give up. For somebody who was supposed to save the world, she was kind of a delicate flower sometimes.

But she settled her feet, even though her heartbeat was like thunder through the rock around Toph's ankles—she better than settled them, she planted them, and maybe not as firmly as Toph would have, but it probably would have taken Toph at least two tries to knock her over. Judging by even the brief time Toph had been with her, the world spent kind of a lot of time getting in Katara's way—telling her she shouldn't do things, or couldn't. She had to have at least a little stone in her to have gotten this far.

Toph had to pay attention for a second; the stupid rock in front of her was trying to crumble away again, but there were still knees pressing on it, Suki and Sokka pulling on Professor Zei and Eng Pin crossed halfway back to help them. She held it where it was with one hand and shoved the other one left, and the whole bridge followed, steadying.

And then she listened behind her: Katara was taking deep breaths, fortifying, before—before—

What was she even doing? Oh, she'd moved her arm forward, all right—smoothly, maybe even gracefully, and also completely wrongly.

"_Augh_," Toph cried. "You've got to make it move, you've got to be even harder than it is."

"I'm trying!" Katara said, but she sounded uncertain. She was too desperate, too afraid—reminding her they might all die had only made her start thinking about failure, and that wasn't going to get her anywhere. Toph had to make her think about something else.

Toph curled her own hands tighter, forced the bridge to hold still. "I'm standing right in front of you," she said.

"What? You're—"

"Standing right in front of you," Toph said, "so _punch_ me. You're doing everything wrong, you're terrible at this, I won't even explain why—you're a sugar queen, you're too soft, you can't tell me what to do—it's my turn and I won't wash the dishes—punch me!"

Katara made an inarticulate noise in her throat, lifted one foot and slammed it back into the ground, and punched.

.*.*.*.

Hok Suan couldn't hear what the girls were yelling to each other, over the sound of pitch burning and rock cracking—advice? Encouragement?—but even without ears at all, she would have felt the Pass shudder underneath her, and seen the ground break in front of Katara's foot.

Impossible. It should have been impossible—Yue was a Waterbender, but she hadn't been the one to raise the wave, her hands had been tight around Hok Suan's elbow when the water had first leapt up. It had been Katara, Hok Suan was sure of it; and yet the stone had broken away when she moved her hands, a great bulky boulder of it.

Katara yelled something and drew both fists back to her waist, and then heaved outward, and the boulder followed, flinging itself obediently out over the sea. It had very little of an arc: Katara had Earthbent it almost straight sideways, and it skipped once across the water, like a giant's child had thrown it, and skimmed neatly over the rail of the battleship.

It did not land on the catapult that had been preparing to fire on them again—that would imply falling from above. It slammed into the catapult from the side and crushed it instantly against the command structure that rose up amidships. The pitch had not been lit, but crumpling metal and a skidding boulder had evidently produced enough sparks to do the job, and the deck began to blaze—no doubt the sailors on deck had already been rousing the crew, but a fire would surely prove yet more urgent than the chance to pick off a few refugees crossing the Pass.

Yue was staring as surely as Hok Suan, but she gathered herself and tugged at Hok Suan's arm. "Quickly," she said, "just a few more steps," and together they hurried to safety.

Eng Pin, always so calm, had not let himself become distracted: he had turned back to help, and he had a hand around Professor Zei's elbow and an arm around his back. Together with Suki and Sokka, he pulled, and the professor scrambled up with a tear in his shirt the only obvious sign that he had fallen at all.

Katara was still staring at the battleship, openmouthed—but something made her turn at last, and she darted onto the bridge. When everyone else was just about across, Toph made one last crumpling motion with her hands, and the bridge steadied long enough for her to sprint across.

Sokka blew out a breath. "Let's never—"

"You say that every time, Sokka," Suki said, and shoved gently at his shoulder. "Quip later—run now."

* * *

><p>There was something of an ache in Wan Liu's back, when she woke; but it was nothing a little walking about wouldn't cure, so she could not precisely begrudge the loss of her bunk. Not sincerely, at least. Besides, it was not a hardship to wake with her nephews curled warmly against her, one to either side, still fast asleep.<p>

The light was dim but distinctly golden—the sun was up, or nearly so, even if she couldn't see it over the gunwale, and the clouds were streaked scarlet and purple. Yanhong was still pressed against Mushi's side, one little hand reaching up to tangle in his beard, and Qingying had tipped over gradually until she rested against his shoulder. Wan Liu smiled. It was good to see Qingying sleeping soundly, her face for once smooth and unworried.

Lan was curled under Qingying's arm, and if she looked less placid than Qingying, at least she was not sobbing in her sleep. Wan Liu let her head settle back against the ferry's hull. It had been so hard for Lan—it had been hard for all of them, but Jin and Yanhong were both a little too young to really understand. Qingying would have insisted she were all right if she had broken both her legs; she was still certain Wan Liu would leave them all by the side of the road any day, and nothing Wan Liu could say had been able to convince her otherwise. And Zhiyang hadn't made a sound since the funerals, hadn't spoken a word to anyone—but even that was easier to bear than Lan's heartbroken sobs.

"Oh, Wan Hao," Wan Liu murmured, very low.

"Your brother?"

Wan Liu turned her head carefully: Mushi's eyes were still shut, but he had turned his head and raised an eyebrow, inquiring.

"Yes," Wan Liu said, instead of a nod he would not see. "I would never abandon the care of his children; but I hope he forgives me for the many errors I commit along the way."

At that, Mushi opened his eyes. He did not precisely smile, but a certain warmth came over his face. "I have only met you twice, but I think I may say with some confidence that you have not done poorly by them."

Wan Liu looked at him curiously. He sounded as though he truly meant it. "You have children?"

Mushi glanced down at Yanhong and the tiny fingers curled into his beard, and brought his far hand up to settle it lightly on her hair, just for a moment. "I did once," he said, and Wan Liu knew better than to ask any more.

But she had been meaning to ask him something else, and now was as good a time as any. "Such small things make a difference," she said. "Your nephew, for example—he seems quite unlike your niece."

She could not have said what reaction she had expected, but she had known it would not be explosive; Mushi, surely, was not the sort of person to lose composure even when faced with the unexpected. And she was right. He simply went very still, and swallowed once before speaking. "I did not want to ask why you had—left," he said, "but now it seems I have the answer."

Wan Liu allowed her head to settle back against the ship again. "Then you do know the girl," she said dryly. "And yet you carry the seal of the queen. I suppose she is not your niece after all—and it does not take so very much imagination to come up with a reason why the Fire Nation should search for emissaries of the queen."

Mushi pressed his lips together and said nothing.

Wan Liu waited a long moment, and then relented. "No one was hurt," she said. "We escaped with our lives and many of the things we loved best; I imagine few on this ferry can say the same. And I cannot wish you had said something—what would you have said? You needed food and sleep, and to seem inconspicuous. I do not blame you."

"You are generous indeed," Mushi said, very quietly.

"These are unkind times," Wan Liu said. "To hope we would not be found and be wrong is a very small crime." She brushed one hand over Jin's cheek, and the other over Zhiyang's. "I will not hold it against you."

"Generous," Mushi repeated. "When we reach the city, I will find a way to repay you."

"And I will find a way to refuse," Wan Liu warned him, and then let herself smile. She could easily have been lying, when she told him she would not hold it against him, and perhaps she should have been—but here they were, refugees together, quite literally in the same boat. Perhaps he hadn't been careful enough; neither had she, blurting out the truth to four strangers on the road. As mistakes went, hoping too strongly and trusting too much were not the worst ones to make.

The sky was turning blue and gold, now, as the sun drew higher; shaded by the side of the boat as she was, Wan Liu could almost pretend the light came from Ba Sing Se. They had left their ghosts behind in the ashes of the house, for better or for worse, and now they would start over. There was no space in her heart for anger.

* * *

><p>By the time the smoke that had been rising from the battleship's deck had blown away, they were safely behind the large outcropping, and it was amazing what ten minutes could do: Katara found herself feeling quite a bit more patient. Nobody was hurt badly, but Eng Pin's ankle had begun to blister a little, and Professor Zei had not escaped his fall entirely unscathed.<p>

Fortunately, he didn't mind holding still to let her heal him. He watched the blue light that flared under her fingers with wide eyes, and murmured, "Fascinating!"

Hok Suan had only been knocked to her knees, and was only a little bruised; but they had a whole day of waiting ahead of them, so Katara wasn't exactly wanting for free time. Anyway, Gran-Gran had always chosen to be more careful than the situation demanded, not less.

Katara pulled a little water from her bending pouch and drew it up to slide, cool, over the scrapes on Hok Suan's shins and the bruises on her knees. Really, they weren't so bad; but it was good practice. It was strange, to put a hand to her belly and feel the water inside, and for a moment it was almost like Toph and her Earthbending, the way Katara could feel the baby's heart.

She looked up after way too long to find Hok Suan smiling at her benevolently, and belatedly she pulled her hand back. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Be super creepy about your personal space?" Sokka suggested.

Katara flushed. "The baby's fine," she blurted. "She's—um, a girl. If you wanted to know."

Hok Suan beamed at her. "Perfect," she said. "I already know what I will call her."

"What?" Katara said.

"Ho-Peng," Hok Suan said, and drew the characters in the dust beside her hip: 和平 (1). "For peace." She sat back against the stone behind her and smiled at Katara, beatific. "Because I have seen the Avatar, and now I know it will come."

"The—Avatar—"

Hok Suan laughed aloud, and Eng Pin, beside her, shook his head. "You did not think it would go unnoticed, surely?" Eng Pin said.

"You bent the sea up to save us," Hok Suan elaborated, "and the stone to crush the catapult. No one could have done that but the Avatar." She grinned. "No wonder Mikari thought we would be safe with you. I would walk up to the very Gates of Azulon, if I had the Avatar for a bodyguard."

Katara ducked her head, opened her mouth, and closed it again.

"What," Toph said, "that's all it takes to shut you up?"

"You won't—" Katara started, but she couldn't figure out how to finish—tell anyone? Who would they tell? They were going to Ba Sing Se, too, and if everything went according to plan the Earth Kingdom officials there would all know who she was. There was nobody to hide from.

Eng Pin saved her. "Your secret is safe between here and the wall," he said. "If we should happen across a—lost Fire Nation patrol, or a scouting party, we will not give you up. Though I shouldn't think we'd have to worry about it, with you along."

He was probably right; but he was also very kind. "Thank you," Katara said, and pushed herself to her feet. They weren't going anywhere for some time, though perhaps if they saw no ships to the south, they could risk a little walking during the daytime. They'd get where they were going—and it was almost a relief to have the whole thing out in the open, really. The awkward explanation part was over; she wouldn't have to do it twice.

"So," Toph said. "It didn't seem all that urgent at the time, but now that nobody's shooting any fireballs at us, I have to ask. Were you talking to yourself about the catapult back there, or what?"

"Oh," Katara said. "Um."

* * *

><p>Mizan had laid out her plans with the utmost confidence; she could not have shown a crack in front of Tan Khai, not if she wanted the least say in anything that happened after. But when they spied the first curl of smoke on the horizon, she couldn't help feeling a little spark of relief. It would not have been her best moment, to have dragged them all so far on the strength of her word and found nothing.<p>

They had left Dou Ying early, before first light, and had spread themselves wide, though no ship was so far from the next that a Firebending signal on deck could not be seen clearly. The one gap in Mizan's knowledge was a precise understanding of the schedule that might drive the supply ships; and given no reason to do otherwise, Tan Khai preferred to be early rather than late. On that, at least, Mizan could agree with her.

There was no stealth on the ocean, not on a morning as clear as this one—but then they did not need it. The Fire Nation had great confidence in their grip on the mid-north coast. Most likely the supply ships would have escorts of some sort, but they would be a formality, not full battleships. Of course, the supply ships would also be armed, to be sure. But with most of their space below taken up by cargo, they had nowhere near the defenses of a battleship of the same size.

So the pirates had waited for signs of ships approaching, and soon enough they would begin to close in. It would have to be well-timed—that was half the reason they had spread out. If the Fire Nation commander were like any dozen navy captains Mizan had ever met, he or she would take a chance and try to outrun them rather than be late with needed supplies. And any Fire Nation ship would undoubtedly beat an Earth Kingdom ship that appeared level with them—but not one that lay in wait ahead, even if that one were the slowest barge imaginable.

And there would not be one, there would be a dozen. Not, perhaps, the most elegant of tactics; but no plan of battle was ever executed perfectly, no matter how well-trained the sailors or how organized the captain. Nothing was certain except error, General Iroh would have said. And if Mizan was going to be forced to adjust on the spur of the moment, she would rather adjust a simple maneuver than some complex trap.

"It's almost time to move," Isani said.

Mizan made herself stop staring at the horizon long enough to look over her shoulder. "We don't even know whether it's the right ship," she said.

Isani squinted at the trail of smoke, dubious. "I doubt your average fisherman would put that in the sky," she said. "Orders?"

"None," Mizan said dryly. "We wait."

Isani pursed her lips.

"Just a little longer," Mizan said. "Long enough to be sure." She couldn't reprimand Isani for her impatience, not when Mizan's own heart was pounding. Mizan turned back to the rail, to the warming northern sky and that little trail of smoke. "Just a little longer. And if it truly is the right ship, they won't know what hit them."

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>(1) These characters would be rendered as "hépíng" in pinyin; but, in keeping with the derivation of Hok Suan's and Eng Pin's names, I chose to use POJ instead (minus tone markings), which I managed thanks to an online Taiwanese Hokkien dictionary. I wanted a meaningful name, I looked for a good one in Hokkien, and "Ho-Peng" is so close to the canonical "Hope" that I couldn't not use it!<p> 


	17. The Wall, Part 1

The chapters are starting to get a bit longer; hopefully cutting them in half is still working to keep them from being too much of a wall of text! I enjoyed writing this one a LOT. I struggled with Azula's POV and may or may not have succeeded with it, but boy is it ever fun to try. :D Oh, and I should note: this is made clear in a later chapter, but just so you know you aren't remembering wrong, the majority of Team Avatar has pretty much forgotten that they learned Azula's name and position in Omashu (they haven't had any reason to remember, and a lot's happened to them since then). This is intentional, so don't let it throw you!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9: The Wall<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>It had been the right ship—rather, the right ships. Nearly a dozen of them, lined up in a row like plums on a branch, and when they'd come close enough Mizan had practically been able to see the commander decide they could outrun Earth Kingdom ships. The smoke had begun to billow out the stacks with new fervor, and the line of supply vessels and escorts had slid neatly past the first three pirate tubs before the pirates were anywhere near close enough to cut them off.<p>

Earth Kingdom ships were very like Fire Nation ships in one respect, of course: they had catapults, though they were used for hurling rocks instead of flaming pitch, and were made mostly from wood instead of metal. But the ships at the western edge of the fleet knew better than to really make an effort. They were there to give the fleet away, to give that unfortunate commander something to speed past. And Mizan couldn't even blame him or her for it—if she'd been aboard one of those ships, she might well have advised that very course of action. Everybody knew Earth Kingdom ships weren't fast enough to catch any but the most pathetic Fire Nation scow, and there was no reward for being cautious if it meant tardiness. Fighting a war an ocean away meant every single ship was needed. Meeting Fire Navy timetables had been one of Mizan's least favorite parts of the job.

So the Fire Nation ships had sped ahead, past the edge of the fleet—and into the middle. The pirate vessels on the eastern edge should already have begun to move together, cutting off escape; but Mizan had motioned to Isani to signal, just in case, and Isani had raised her hands immediately and sent fire flaring up into the air.

That had probably been the first real sign the commander would have had that something was not right—but by then, of course, it had been too late.

And now the ship's deck was scattered with dents and with rubble, and Mizan was in the doorway of the bridge.

"Disgusting," the commander spat at her, and twisted for a moment as though she meant to hit Mizan, even though Isani already had both of the woman's wrists. "You don't deserve your talents—may the spirits strip them from you—"

"I've no bending skill at all," Mizan said mildly. "So you may consider your prayer retroactively answered."

"From _all_ of you," the woman amended, glaring at Isani, "who have no loyalty to our nation—no loyalty to the Fire Lord."

Mizan snorted. "He didn't care to have it," she said. No one who had been shuffled onto the ship that had ferried Prince Zuko away had been wanted—it would have defied the very purpose of exile if they had. Except perhaps for General Iroh, but Mizan suspected that it had not pained the Fire Lord overmuch to have his well-liked elder brother choose to spend a few years in obscurity.

She thought about it sometimes, of course—she was thinking about it now, watching the commander narrow her eyes. Things could have been different; any of a dozen small things changed, a hundred moments where Mizan could have followed orders, could have bowed and scraped, could have kept her mouth shut.

But she hadn't. It wasn't as though she hadn't known it had been expected of her, but it had grated on her every time to be asked to; and if that was what the Fire Lord and his admirals had wanted from her, they would never truly have gotten it in the end. Mizan had loyalty, just not the right kind—and it was General Iroh, the prince, and her crew who had earned it, and not some man on a throne whom she had never met. The officer disdained Mizan for a traitor, but she'd never switched sides; she'd hardly been on one in the first place. She was not built to be a hero of legend, to serve ideals of honor or the dreams of a Phoenix King. She made the choices that were in front of her, and saved what seemed to her worth being saved.

And right now, what was worth being saved was this excellent ship. Mizan cast a glance around the bridge. "What do pirates do with prisoners?" she asked Isani idly. "Throw them overboard? Maroon them?"

"Would defeat the purpose a bit, sir," Isani said, "unless we want every navy ship in Port Tsao on our heels."

"True," Mizan said. The navy wouldn't take kindly to a dozen murdered crews—that would make the pirates a _danger_, not just a problem, and as well as today might have gone, they weren't yet ready for the sort of retaliation that would bring down. "I suppose we can spare a few boats to let them row home." She smiled at the commander, very warmly; it seemed like the kind of thing that would annoy the woman. "And once we've cleaned them up a little, these ships should make a lovely addition to our little fleet."

Once Isani had taken the officer away, Mizan began the process of going through the bridge. There wouldn't be state secrets on a supply ship; but the woman did have good charts, and there was a messenger hawk in the rear office, beside a stack of papers the woman had not been able to finish setting on fire.

"Good bird," Mizan murmured, when the hawk screeched at her warily. She didn't have any meat on her, but it wouldn't be hard to get some, and if the hawk warmed to them it could be very useful. Messenger hawks were clever birds, and not difficult to train; once you'd shown them a place and identified it with a command they could understand, and made it clear food was involved, they'd carry a message nearly anywhere. It would be a decent way to keep the fleet in touch with Dou Ying.

The papers were not terribly important—the commander probably would have burned up everything in the bridge just to make Mizan think otherwise, if she'd had the time. But Mizan couldn't help frowning down at them a little. One of them was a stamped set of orders; the corner was missing, the edge black and crumbling, but there was no mistaking the general drift. Once they'd finished this assignment, the commander had been directed to pick up new cargo in the colonies and head to Chameleon Bay.

Chameleon Bay—that was on the other side of the continent. Granted, it wouldn't take steamships too long to cover even that distance, and it was certainly safer than trying to transport anything important over Earth Kingdom land, even when sea meant meeting the occasional newly motivated pirate fleet. Still, peculiar orders for a fleet that had clearly been making easy runs through the Smoking Sea.

But it wouldn't be the first time an officer had ever been assigned new duties, or sent to a faraway post. Mizan set the papers down and eyed the hawk. "I suppose I'd best get you something before you decide to eat my fingers," she said, and the hawk agreed with a shriek.

* * *

><p>They left the Serpent's Pass behind before the sun could rise again, but it was still quite a ways to Ba Sing Se. The Pass had come out onto a fair-sized road that wound over plains and low hills, but it was eerily empty; evidently they really were the first group that had used the Serpent's Pass in quite some time, and apparently no one in Ba Sing Se wanted to head west. There were train tracks, built over arching columns that stretched away over the plains alongside the road—but Professor Zei had shaken his head and explained that there would be no train.<p>

"The tracks west are closed," he'd said. "There hasn't been a train to the west since the Great Siege—General Iroh toppled several portions, and they have never been repaired."

They could see the walls, but that hardly meant anything—even in the south, they'd heard of the walls of Ba Sing Se. It was like the lighthouse of Shinsotsu except there were a hundred, a thousand, lined up in a row, and you could see the wall-lights at night for miles and miles.

Off the Pass, they didn't have to worry about the sun anymore; and it hadn't been easy to sleep during the day, even with the shade Toph had punched out of the rock-face for them. Now that there was nothing between them and Ba Sing Se but open space, Katara didn't find herself quite so anxious, and when Sokka yawned theatrically, she grinned at him instead of rolling her eyes.

"C'mon," he said, and elbowed her gently. "If the eclipse is between now and sunrise it wouldn't have done us any good anyway."

"Lazy," Katara murmured, but she let herself slow, and within ten minutes they'd found a clear, flat space, and Toph had kicked them a fair-sized rock tent out of the ground.

It didn't take long for everybody to settle in; but the furthest Katara could get was unrolling her sleeping mat. She was tired, but not the right kind of tired. She could Earthbend, she'd proven it, and they'd crossed the Pass and were resting practically in the shadow of Ba Sing Se—somehow everything that had been hanging so heavy over her felt further away, and in its absence she couldn't seem to make herself hold still.

Somebody touched her arm, and she looked up: Suki. "Aren't you going to sleep?" Suki said.

"Maybe later," Katara said, which was a terrible answer if she didn't want Suki to worry—but Suki looked at her hard for a second and then suddenly smiled.

"As long as you haven't found anything new to beat yourself up about," Sokka said past Suki's shoulder, stomping a couple lumps out of his own mat.

"She's just going to sit up and gossip with the _intangible dead kid_," Toph said pointedly.

She was never going to let that go. "I forgot!" Katara said. "I forget all the time, Sokka can tell you. We didn't tell Suki until I talked to him in front of her, either."

"Hah!" Toph said, and rolled over deliberately.

Katara glanced at Aang, just in case—she never knew quite how he was going to feel about being reminded nobody else could tell he was there—but he was grinning at Toph's back, and when he looked at Katara it mellowed out into a smile. "You're really going to stay up?" he said. "Just—sometimes it gets a little boring, when you're all asleep. Since—you know." _I don't have to._

Katara smiled at him, and stepped outside.

Toph had made the little stone tent tall enough to stand up in—it was more like a house, really, "tent" seemed like the wrong word for something so solid. She'd closed off three sides, and the moment Katara was out, she ever so thoughtfully brought the fourth up with a slam. Toph had only had Katara envision it to help her Earthbend, but Katara still kind of did want to punch her in the face.

But Toph had closed their shelter up too soon; Professor Zei was still outside, muttering to himself and rifling through his pack.

"Do you need to get back in?" Katara said, when he looked up. "I'm sure she'd open it for you—"

"Well, actually," Professor Zei said, and then cleared his throat. He had a scroll of rice paper in his hands, Katara saw, and the hand he'd been shuffling through his pack with had come out with a brush. "I—I was wondering if you wouldn't mind—that is, you did say it was the most recent Avatar who traveled with you? Avatar Aang?"

"Yes," Katara said slowly.

"There were many wonders in the library," Professor Zei explained quickly, "and of course I would never have gotten as much as I have without it—but even the best written sources can only tell you so much, and I—there will never be another chance for me to speak to someone from the Southern Air Temple—"

"No," Katara said, immediate and sharp. She remembered the look on Aang's face in the desert, and the oasis; and in the temple room, surrounded by stone Avatars with his tattooed head bowed down, shoulders curved by a weight he shouldn't have had to carry.

"Please—"

"Katara," Aang said, and she bit her lip and turned to look at him. He'd come around to hover a bit in front of Zei's shoulder, and he was looking back at her gravely—and then he glanced at Professor Zei, and his expression turned uncertain. "I'd—I'd like to."

"Are you sure?" Katara said. He didn't _look_ sure, and she wasn't going to make him. He'd trusted her with so much already, even back when they'd hardly known each other, and she wasn't going to force him to crack himself open again just so Professor Zei could get his answers.

But he was nodding. "Yeah," he said, and tilted his chin up. "I want to. I want somebody to—remember. Nobody can fix it, but I want somebody to remember. I want somebody to know about them, to know what they were like—to know what's gone, now that they're dead."

"All right," Katara said gently, and then glanced at Zei. "Okay."

Professor Zei sat in place instantly; there wasn't any fire or anything, but they'd propped up a couple of sticks and set them alight so everybody could see to lay out their mats, and both of them were still burning. He had a little stoppered pot with ink, already mixed, and he dipped the brush in and hummed to himself a moment. "A considerable number of my sources have mentioned the Southern Air Temple as a producer of exemplary fruit pies," he said. "Can Avatar Aang elaborate?"

"They were _amazing_," Aang said immediately, fervent, and laughed.

.*.*.*.

It was quiet, inside; Hok Suan and Eng Pin had both fallen asleep just about the moment they'd closed their eyes, judging by their breathing, and Toph and Yue had to be at least halfway there. It was quiet enough that Suki could just barely hear the sound of Katara's voice, even though she couldn't pick out the words.

"Do you really think she's all right?" Sokka murmured.

It was black as pitch with the walls closed up, but Suki rolled to face the sound of his voice. "Yes, I do," she said, equally low, and then smiled to herself. "Then again, I thought she was mostly okay right before she went off to hand herself to Zhao without telling us, so maybe you shouldn't ask me."

Sokka snorted, and then went quiet for a moment. "Was it—hard for you?"

Suki blinked into the dark. "What?" she said.

"Leaving them again," Sokka said. "Mikari and—and everybody."

It wasn't all that strange a question, really, except that he sounded so hesitant—that was what gave Suki pause. It had been hard, a little, but she'd made the choice months ago; she'd missed Mikari, she'd missed all the girls, but there hadn't been any difficult decisions left to make, in the ferry station. Except Sokka didn't sound like he knew that.

"I wasn't going to stay," she said.

There was a moment of silence, and then Sokka huffed out a breath. "How do you always do that," he muttered.

Suki grinned. "I don't need to see your face to know what you're thinking," she said. "There's more of us now, you don't need me as much, but—"

"No, we do," Sokka said immediately. "We, uh. We do. Need you. I mean, all of us do. Not in a—um, creepy way—"

Suki laughed, and fumbled her way across the space between them until she found his hand. He went still when she did, fingers pressed flat against his mat beneath her hand, but she didn't think it was because he minded.

"Okay, okay," Toph grumbled behind them, sour, "we're a happy happy family. Shut up and go to sleep."

"Sorry," Suki said, but she was still smiling, and she left her fingers curled around Sokka's when she closed her eyes.

* * *

><p>"Hey—hey! You there, boy: another cup!"<p>

Zuko gritted his teeth, and tightened his hands around the edges of his tray. He couldn't smash it over anyone's head, not and keep this job; but it was a little soothing to pretend that he might.

Uncle kept saying they were lucky to have found a place so quickly—Uncle didn't know anything. They hadn't been lucky in weeks, not since they'd reached the docks in Port Tsao and walked right into Azula. Zuko had let himself be fooled, had fallen into complacency: that woman Yin had brought them safely south again, and they had seen the Avatar light up half of Gungduan on their way past. He had begun to think everything might turn out as it should—as it _must_ if he were ever to regain the place that was rightfully his.

That had been his mistake.

Since then it had been one indignity after another, that stupid girl with the scar on her leg and those Earthbenders who had saved them from Azula, the queen of Sennang and Wan Liu and her grubby children; it was _vexing_, was what it was, and Uncle was stupid to forget it.

But then Zuko was lucky that Uncle hadn't forgotten his own name, overwhelmed as his fragile sanity might be by the joy of working in a tea shop.

The man who had yelled at him wanted another cup of jasmine; Zuko carried his tray back to the counter and set it down with a thunk, and tried not to look Uncle in the eye while he relayed the order.

Certainly, there were many things about Ba Sing Se that were impressive. The trains were—to be honest, Zuko was not sure the Fire Nation could have constructed such things. The raised tracks were of such magnitude that only Earthbenders could have built them without unimaginable expense; they had boarded very near the riverbank where the ferry had let them off, and been carried all the way into the city proper, which had been nearly a day's journey even at the pace the Earthbender trains maintained. And the walls—Zuko could not argue that they were not rightly famous. He had never seen the like; to think that Uncle had sieged such a city, and had nearly obtained its surrender! It did not seem possible.

But they had come out of the train station into the Lower Ring, and promptly been packed in with every other dirty refugee or squalling peasant in the place. Uncle had, of course, refused to separate; it was excellent camouflage, he had told Zuko, to make themselves part of an Earth Kingdom family. But he had said it in that way that meant he thought Zuko had failed to understand something, and he acted so strangely—considerate, careful, as though he were trying to make something up to them. As though there were something he were sorry for, even though it was he who had done them the favor by obtaining their ferry tickets in the first place.

Infuriating.

And now here they were: working in a tea shop to earn pocket change that Zuko would have smelted down for practice at home, and sleeping packed into a single room with a random woman and all of her insane children. The middle girl kept them up half the night with her pointless crying, and Jin's efforts to never let a day pass without bothering Zuko at least once were succeeding admirably.

Azula would have laughed herself sick if she could see them.

Frankly, Zuko was surprised the refugees weren't all dead by now. There were whole districts of them in the Lower Ring these days, and they were so incautious it beggared belief. They shared rooms and clothes and even food—as though it made a difference when the whole Lower Ring was mud on the sole of Ba Sing Se's boot. Granted, there was no particular benefit to be gained by Zuko sliding a sword through Wan Liu in the middle of the night, as it would only make them conspicuous; but Wan Liu didn't _know_ that. The woman simply was not careful.

They reminded him of those idiot villagers by the coast, giving away mats and stew to strangers they never should have trusted. Not that it wasn't useful—that was what Father would say. Useful—usable, able to be used, and when used fully, to be discarded.

And if Wan Liu had repaired the holes in his spare trousers without being asked, if Zuko could not muster quite enough anger to kick Jin away as he should, that did not matter. He was using them, and when he was done he would not look back.

"Nephew. Nephew?"

Zuko turned, startled, and nearly knocked the tray from the counter. Which would have been unfortunate, because Uncle had just set five full teacups on it.

"Your jasmine man, nephew," Uncle said, nodding to a cup set apart from the others, "and the corner table—all ginseng." He paused. "Unless you are unwell—"

"I'm fine," Zuko said sharply, and picked up the tray. The sooner they were away from here, the better.

.*.

They did not leave the tea shop until evening, the sun already down somewhere beyond the walls and the sky all crimson and violet overhead. Uncle hummed something to himself as they went, as though they weren't walking down a narrow, squalid little street surrounded on all sides by Earthbenders. Zuko still didn't even understand how they had gotten here—since they'd left Sennang and the queen with the game-tile, they hadn't spent an instant without some Earth Kingdom peasant or other looking over their shoulders, and Uncle still hadn't explained how they'd ended up with a queen's seal and safe passage.

Probably, Zuko thought, Uncle had known it would be like this—no doubt Uncle planned never to tell him, or hoped that he would forget. It didn't matter, Zuko didn't need him. He would figure it out himself, whether Uncle liked it or not.

The Lower Ring was always loud, even in the evening, and lit up everywhere you looked; people were always begging or performing in the hope of a few pathetic coins. They passed a street corner with a space marked out by dirty twine so a woman could dance, twirling fans as long as her arms, to the sound of a pair of boys singing high-pitched songs about silken-haired girls and the sea. People were always pushing and shoving, and the dumplings Uncle stopped for halfway back were too hot, steam rising like smoke from the folds pressed into the dough. Maybe some of it _was_ smoke—Zuko doubted he could trust that the fat man behind the food stall hadn't burned them. Probably he'd charged too much, but Zuko had never had to learn what a dozen dumplings should cost, and Uncle would have paid the man no matter what price he'd asked. Uncle was foolish that way.

"Building" should have been too kind a word for where they were staying, but it had to be admitted that the place was fairly sound. In the Fire Nation, they'd have been huddling in a lean-to or sleeping on the street; but even peasants in the Earth Kingdoms could raise four solid walls and a roof, as long as they could bend. They were on the second floor—there _was_ a second floor. Zuko supposed he should have been grateful.

The stairs were more of a ladder, dips carved roughly out of the stone of the wall; Zuko got partway up and then took the dumplings from Uncle, but before he could set them on the floor overhead, the girl was there—Qingying.

"I've got them," she said, so Zuko let go of the cloth they were wrapped in, and finished hauling himself up with both hands. The dumplings were handed off to Wan Liu, and Qingying reached immediately to help Uncle up—unnecessary, Uncle could make it on his own, but nevertheless he patted her hand and thanked her.

Lan was red-eyed but not currently in tears; the littler girl was sitting on Wan Liu's knee. The middle boy was tucked silently into a corner, as always, and Jin—Jin was scooting around the floor in circles making rumbling noises with his mouth. Perhaps, Zuko thought, he had suffered a blow to the head as a baby.

"Get up," he said sharply, when Jin nearly landed a knee on his toes.

"But I'm an Earth train!" Jin said, nonsensically, and offered up another coughing rumble when Zuko stared at him dubiously.

"I hope they weren't too much," Wan Liu was saying to Uncle, hefting the dumplings in one hand with a look of startled pleasure.

Uncle waved this inanity away, only to replace it with his own: "Nonsense, nonsense. We bought them for ourselves as well; do not give credit where it is not due."

"I suppose I am glad you say so," Wan Liu said, smiling, "for if they had been a gift I should not have accepted them." She glanced over toward the wall, where Zhiyang had folded himself up, and the expression on her face was, for the briefest moment, very tired. "Here, Zhiyang—they smell good, don't they?"

Zhiyang stood hesitantly. A waste of time and effort, to coddle such a child; if he did not speak it was because he did not wish to, and he would change his mind or he would not.

But Uncle was looking at Zhiyang, too—even Jin had ceased his noise, and was sitting squarely on Zuko's foot to watch.

"Pig chicken," Uncle was saying gently. "Very tender—good for young boys who do not eat enough."

There was a table in their little room, though the legs were uneven; Qingying had scrounged for rocks of precisely the right size to make it level, and mostly succeeded. It still wobbled a little, but Zuko did not—had not found the right moment to say anything about it. Wan Liu set the dumplings down and tucked the cloth flat around them so that it almost looked like a platter. They were still steaming a little; Zhiyang took one and bit part of the edge off, and though he still said nothing, he chewed with actual enthusiasm. He snatched up two more a moment later, which made Uncle laugh, and he scurried past the table-corner and knelt down to give one to Jin.

"Thank you," Jin said, wide-eyed and ridiculous in his effort at solemnity; and then Zhiyang held the other one up and waited.

Zuko blinked at him. For such a quiet child, he was unfazed by the attention—he waited, and held out the dumpling, and finally Zuko forced his arm to move and took it.

He glanced up to find Wan Liu with her mouth twisted up, her eyes suspiciously wet, and Uncle looking at him as though he had for once done everything precisely right, though he had only taken a dumpling from a boy. For some reason, Zuko felt his face grow oddly warm; to hide it, he lifted the dumpling to his mouth and took a bite.

Perhaps it was a little burned, but he supposed the taste was acceptable.

* * *

><p>Mai had been told many times that she didn't smile enough. By Mother, who had never been able to understand why Mai couldn't simply be more <em>pleasant<em>; and by Aunt, who had said more than once that if she could not be pretty—and she couldn't, not with that sharp chin or those narrow hips—then she absolutely must learn to be charming. Even by Father, occasionally, though Mai suspected that was because Mother had spoken to him about it, not because he was paying attention to the expressions on Mai's face. She had begun to make an effort _not_ to smile, and usually, it wasn't all that hard. After years of court, first with Azula and then in New Ozai, where two-thirds of the compliments were lies and all the jokes had teeth, not a lot of things struck Mai as worth smiling at.

Ty Lee, though, tended to end up in that category more often than Mai expected.

"I'm dying!"

"No you aren't," Mai said, but she couldn't quite get her mouth to flatten out as neatly as her voice.

Ty Lee was bending sideways, making a face that would already have been pretty grotesque even before she'd started mashing her cheeks with her hands; when Mai gave her the sideways glance she was so clearly hoping for, she stuck out her tongue, and then straightened up with a hop. "I _could_ be," she said, earnest.

Mai tried not to let the corner of her mouth twitch up any higher. "Unlikely," she said.

"But we've been walking for _ages_," Ty Lee said, "and it's such a nice day!"

It wasn't true. Well, it was, but only half: the day was fine, blue sky and a gentle wind from the northeast, but they hadn't left the ships of the South Yellow Sea behind all that long ago. Azula had commandeered a battleship minutes after they'd reached the sea to carry them to the other side, and they'd disembarked on the east bank only that morning—a few hours ago, that was all.

"What would you rather?" Samnang said quietly, from Mai's other side. He flicked a pointed glance to the left, and then to the right; low grassy hills rolled away in all directions, and they still hadn't met up with the road. There was nothing to do, Mai interpreted, except walk.

"We could eat something," Ty Lee offered. "Or play a game. Or—"

"Hush," Azula said sharply ahead of them, and Mai went still and started paying attention. It was the best strategy there was for the times when Azula got that particular edge in her voice.

Azula tilted her head, and Mai did the same; for a minute, Mai could hear nothing but grass swishing in the wind, and by the vexed look on Azula's face, the same was true for her. But then there was a little burst of sound, so faint they might not have heard it at all if the wind had been going the other direction. A small pattering sort of noise—a laugh.

Azula smiled. "Perfect," she said.

Mai looked at her. No one had asked Azula how exactly she was planning to get into Ba Sing Se, never mind how she meant for them to find Iroh and Zuko once they were inside. Ty Lee hadn't asked because she didn't need to; things tended to work out the way Azula wanted them to, most of the time, and that was good enough for Ty Lee. Samnang hadn't asked because he never did—he was their friend, but he was a teacher's son with an island name, and it would never be his place to ask the crown princess what she was thinking. And Mai hadn't asked because it wouldn't matter if she did. Azula did what Azula thought was best, and was right often enough that Mai didn't mind helping. Besides, knowing things in advance was boring.

But sometimes, maybe, it would be a good idea anyway.

"This way," Azula said, and started off along the crest of the hill.

.*.*.*.

It didn't take long for them to catch up to the laughter—partly because the noise kept going. Chuckling, a yelp, someone calling out: this was not a stealthy group of people.

"Earth Kingdom, no doubt," Azula murmured, crouching low; she knew without looking that Mai had followed suit, and Samnang and Ty Lee were undoubtedly hidden below and behind. The endless hills sharpened occasionally into ridges, and they'd happened upon one that was perfectly placed. "No one else would be headed so boldly to Ba Sing Se." Except Uncle and Zuzu, of course; but they might as well be Earth Kingdom, for all their wretched behavior toward Father.

And, indeed, there were plenty of green clothes in the group on the road below. Two men, and a woman whose belly rounded out with pregnancy; two girls, a short one and a taller one—

Azula looked at the taller one more carefully, and then at the three who were left. Blue—Water Tribe? This far south? It had been irritating enough to find Waterbenders in amidst the rebels at New Ozai, but now there were more? Except, no, that girl—that girl with the white hair. Surely there weren't two Waterbenders in the Earth Kingdoms with such hair. They were the same ones, then. The girl with the braid—she had run off with the king, and the taller Earth girl looked familiar because she'd been the one with the fans. And the boy—the boy was the same one who'd given Mai's brother back to her. It _was_ them.

Even better than Azula could have hoped. She could not have counted on any random group of Earth peasants to have benders among them; but this group could fight, and already had reason to. They were perfect.

"I remember that girl," Ty Lee whispered, bright. "Her hair's so lovely!"

Azula managed not to snort through sheer force of will. Ty Lee could be so ridiculous.

"But, uh," Ty Lee said. "Um. There's—more of them, now. More of them than there are of us."

Ridiculous or not, Azula thought, Ty Lee was probably the only person who could ever make words like that sound gently inquiring instead of heinously insulting. As if Azula couldn't see that already.

"I know," Azula said aloud, because she was feeling generous today. "That's why, when we go down there and fight with them, we're going to lose."

* * *

><p>"What are they <em>waiting<em> for?" Toph muttered, and let out another loud chuckle before Katara could scowl at her again.

Like Katara had any reason to—_Toph_ wasn't the one who'd forgotten to mention that there was a _dead kid_ hanging around, and she was the one who'd felt them coming, even if the dead kid had been the one to double-check. And it wasn't as though Katara could blame her for that; Toph was awesome, but she wasn't invisible. Nobody was perfect.

She'd felt it like a little tickle, a sneeze against the soles of her feet; sure, it could have just been a rabbit fox or something, but with their luck, what were the odds? Something had been following them—and maybe Katara had meant it as some kind of gesture, turning to Aang right in front of Toph to ask him to go check it out. And he had, and they'd all kept walking until Katara had turned around suddenly and announced that it was some angry girl they'd met on their way south. Didn't sound that scary to Toph, but Katara had gotten her responsibility face on, and made them all pretend everything was normal while Aang kept an eye on their stalkers.

"Maybe they aren't going to do anything," Sokka said, tone absurdly mismatched to the words, and then he elbowed Katara like she'd just said something funny.

Katara grinned at him widely; Toph could tell, her voice came out in a hiss between her teeth. "She attacked us before just for taking a step toward King Bumi. She doesn't really seem like the type to sit back and let us walk by."

"She is Fire Nation," Yue said. Every step she took sent vibrations shivering up her legs and arms, and she was the worst of any of them at this pretending thing, for some reason. She was barely even trying; she was gripping her pike so tightly it was probably going to give her splinters. If Katara should be scowling at anybody, Toph thought grumpily, it was _her_. "Surely she could have nothing pleasant planned for anyone on the road to a free Earth Kingdom city."

"I cannot help but agree," said Hok Suan, and then she turned to Eng Pin and kissed his cheek. The motion let her look at the ridge, Toph realized, and she thought it at the same moment that a quiver of motion struck her toes. "They're moving," Hok Suan said, and Katara turned to look.

"They sure are," Toph said, feeling the thump of footsteps against the ground, and dropping the pretense that they all knew nothing was like punching the estate wall open, back at home—like leaving Master Yu's lessons behind for the arena. She swung around and planted her feet, and yanked a wall out of the earth.

.*.*.*.

Nobody hit the slab Toph lifted out of the ground directly; but the boy redirected a hair too slowly, slamming one shoulder into the corner, and the girl with the long braid had to fling herself into the air to avoid it.

She came down perhaps three paces from Yue, and Yue was already moving. She remembered how it had happened last time—only the smallest gap, and the girl had darted in and struck her, and left her arm numb and hanging and her bending water splattered all over the street. She wasn't going to let that happen again.

Yue swung out sharply; the blow did not connect, the other girl was too fast, but she had to flip backward onto her hands to keep Yue's pike from knocking her legs out from under her. She twisted her hips to aim a kick at Yue's face, and Yue ducked and slashed outward again in the same motion.

The girl was so _quick_—Yue would never be able to beat her in that. She was better with the pike than she had been, but bending would be more to her advantage; and yet the girl could take that away so easily, and wood seemed bound to prove a better barrier to her hands than water. Unless Yue followed in Toph's footsteps, and simply froze a wall around herself; but if the only thing she wanted was to keep herself safe behind a wall, she might as well have stayed in Kanjusuk.

Unless—Yue hesitated. The bending pouching Katara had helped her make was fastened at her waist, corked, and the girl already back on her feet; but if Yue could get a hand free—

The girl darted in, and Yue struck her wrist—not quickly enough or sharply enough to hurt her, but the blow knocked her hand sideways, and she only bruised Yue's collarbone instead of hitting the spot on Yue's shoulder that she had been aiming for. She made a sound and leapt back, and Yue raised her pike in readiness. But the girl just grimaced and put a hand to her mouth.

"Sorry," she said.

Yue blinked. "I forgive you," she said, because it cost her nothing to be polite; and she took the opportunity to slide her left hand off the pike's end just long enough to pop the cork from her bending pouch.

The girl beamed at her gratefully, like she had really been worried Yue might be angry with her, and then threw herself forward.

Yue swung the pike's end around to meet her—but her left hand was flattened, palm to the wood, instead of curled around. Her stance was not good, but there was energy in the motion nevertheless, and fully half her bending water leapt from her hip and smacked the girl in the face.

The girl would have dodged the pike in an instant at any other time—Yue had tried to strike her and hit nothing but air enough times to know that it was true. But quick as she might be, the girl was not expecting the splash; she flinched away and squeezed her eyes shut as it struck her, and a moment later the pike's handle hit her in the ribs.

She'd flip herself upright in a moment if Yue wasn't careful, so she didn't let the girl tumble backward alone—Yue followed her down, the length of the pike pinning her shoulders, and pressed a knee into her belly.

"That's going to bruise," the girl said, sounding more impressed than angry, still blinking water from her eyes.

"Sorry," Yue said, a deliberate echo.

"I forgive you," the girl said, and laughed.

.*.*.*.

Any other day, half of these fools would already have darts in their shoulders, their chests and bellies. But Mai was worth her weight in silver: she did what Azula had asked her to, and missed. Inflicting any kind of real injury would only slow everything down, and they needed to get to Ba Sing Se. Azula had watched Mai throw her darts and little knives a thousand times, and she knew what it looked like when Mai was throwing straight. She knew that extra tilt to Mai's fingers shouldn't be there; she knew Mai could have made the blade fly true.

This particular time, it didn't matter anyway—the dark-haired Waterbender slapped the knife away with a curl of water before it could get within a pace of the man Mai had thrown it at. Useless fellow; not a weapon on him that Azula could see, and he was yelling something about Azula's hair instead of ducking or running away. Azula would have been tempted to let Mai hit him.

But the Waterbender wasn't Azula. Sentimental, Azula thought, and stubborn; the southern raiders Father had invited to court now and again had said the same of the rest of her people. In the past, Azulon had made offers now and again to the captured Waterbenders of the south—the ones who hadn't killed themselves in the ships on the way north. Waterbending did, after all, have its uses, and there were ways Grandfather might have availed himself of the ability to stop a flood in its tracks, or part a river. Anyone could see that the Fire Nation was winning, would win in the end, and who would not choose to win? An unanswerable question, Azula had thought when she was little, but there was an answer: the sentimental, and the stubborn.

But everything was going perfectly. Ty Lee had already failed and been tackled to the ground, and the Warrior of Kyoshi had knocked Samnang's glaive from his hands and made him kneel with a fan to his throat. Mai was ducking the Earthbender girl's rocks and conspicuously not stopping the boy from sneaking up on her from the side. And the dark-haired Waterbender—

The dark-haired Waterbender was going to run out of water soon, if Azula wasn't careful. She forced herself to slow down. The next fireball she threw was not as hot as it might have been, blue flickering to white and yellow around the edges, but it still steamed away a fair helping of the water that the girl raised to meet it.

"Good thing I already want to hit you," the girl said, incomprehensibly, and then she settled her feet against the earth and waited.

For what? Azula was right in front of her, and had been throwing flames at her quite consistently, although admittedly none of them had done more than singe the girl's hair. There was still water in the pouch at the girl's hip, Azula had heard it slosh as she moved. Why was she so still?

It did not fit, and Azula did not ignore what did not fit—what did not fit was important. Her arms were raised already, her fists clenched, but there had to be something she wasn't seeing, some reason the girl would leave herself vulnerable. Azula hesitated, only for an instant; and that was when the girl moved.

It was graceless, the way she shoved her hands outward; uneven, unpracticed. But it was enough to make the ground follow.

The ground—the _ground_, when the girl was clearly a Waterbender, and there was only one thing that could ever mean. Even as Azula stumbled, she cursed herself; she hadn't been prepared for this, but there must have been signs. Even back in New Ozai, there must have been something. Something she had missed, and now she paid for it. Certainly there had been many rumors of the Avatar over the years, some more credible than others, but she had not expected—but that was an excuse. Failure was failure, no matter the reason. The proof was before her eyes. There was no other explanation: Azula was fighting the Avatar herself.

But it did not matter. The plan remained the same; there was simply an additional variable to consider.

The earth had rumbled away from the girl, sharply, and Azula with it, but both stopped with a jerk. Azula thought of rising; but she could not leap to her feet and throw fire with rock closed cool and heavy over her boots, around her wrists.

"You're not going anywhere," said the Earthbender who was not the Avatar, and with a sharp motion of her arms she dragged the stone cuffs on Azula's arms downward, and bound them to the earth.


	18. The Wall, Part 2

It was pretty handy, that thing Toph could do to tie people up, but Katara was a little afraid to try it. She'd probably end up crushing somebody's fingers.

She hadn't quite been sure what would happen when she flung her hands toward the girl from Omashu—whether a rock might fly up, or the ground might move, or even nothing at all. There had been the Aang explanation, and then they'd been trying to finish crossing the Pass without dying; she and Toph hadn't really stopped to practice along the way. But she thought maybe she had done better this time. She'd waited—neutral jing, she'd reminded herself, and she'd remembered the way Toph had paused in the arena, the tilt of her head. And it had worked.

Toph shackled all of them—four, and they were all familiar faces. "You!" Sokka said to the girl with the braid. "You're the one who stepped on me, aren't you?"

"I did say sorry," the girl pointed out.

Professor Zei cleared his throat. "If I may," he said. "I suspect we are looking at the crown princess Azula."

"... The one who stepped on me?" Sokka said.

"Not precisely," said Professor Zei, "although I would not be surprised if she were highly ranked, given that she travels with the princess. The flame ornament—flames are a common decoration among Fire Nation nobility, of course, and always have been, but certain shapes are traditionally reserved for the royal family. And that," he added, pointing to another girl's head, "is one of them."

It was the sharp girl, the one who'd set the soldiers on them back in Omashu; when Professor Zei pointed to her, she tilted her chin up, and looked him up and down with a disdainful eyebrow raised. And, sure enough, bound up in her hair was a three-pronged red flame, on a golden band.

"The crown princess," Toph repeated, skeptical.

Katara thought about it for a moment. "That means you're Zuko's sister," she said. They hadn't seen the Fire Nation prince since Kanjusuk, but Katara hadn't forgotten the lighthouse in Shinsotsu, or Queen Mei's description of him. His father was the Fire Lord, and had banished him when he was barely Aang's age; and this girl was his sister. Had she missed him, while he was in exile? Did she think he had deserved it? Katara tried to imagine watching Sokka sent out into the ice fields alone and carrying on after like nothing had happened; she couldn't picture it. But she couldn't picture Father choosing to send him out, either, and yet the Fire Lord had.

The girl—Azula—pursed her mouth up tight for a moment. "Not at the moment," she said easily, like it really could be taken back just like that. "Although, as it happens, I have been looking for him, in the hope of ... correcting certain oversights."

"We can't leave her here," Suki said.

Katara turned to look at her: she was standing with her arms folded, looking down gravely at the crown princess and the red flame in her hair. After a moment, she glanced up at Katara, and shook her head.

"We can't," she repeated, and looked at Yue. "You said it yourself—she can't have been planning to do anything good, no matter who she's looking for or why. She's the crown princess of the Fire Nation, a day away from Ba Sing Se itself."

"Leaving her would kind of be asking for trouble," Sokka conceded.

"We should take her with us," Yue said, and she sounded startlingly firm. Katara was used to her being so kind and polite—it was easier than it should have been to forget the way she'd looked in Kanjusuk, standing at the high table with her hands in her sleeves, calmly telling Master Pakku he was six kinds of wrong. "If there is anywhere she can be securely held, it is Ba Sing Se—and if we—" She hesitated, and glanced at Azula—she'd been about to mention the eclipse, Katara realized. "If we do find what we are looking for," Yue said instead, "we will need to speak to the king. I suspect he will be considerably more eager to listen if we are able to provide proof of our good intentions."

"And turning over the crown princess of the Fire Nation would probably count," Toph agreed. She made a sharp little motion with her hands, and four sets of stone cuffs split free of the ground with a rumble. "Just as long as we don't let them slow us down."

* * *

><p>It made sense enough, Toph could understand that; and with the rock she'd wrapped around their wrists holding their hands behind their backs, it would be pretty hard for any of them to bend their way loose. And that one girl couldn't throw her little whistling knives, either. Toph had thought it was her ears ringing for a second, that little hissing whine; but it had ended with a thunk of metal against dirt, vibrations tracing the edges of a small curved blade. It was actually pretty cool—it didn't really compare to throwing boulders around, but it was interesting. Zei'd said they were probably nobles, if they were hanging around the princess, and Toph had pushed the girl up off the ground with a hand on her arm—she was wearing silk. And yet there were throwing knives tucked up her neatly-embroidered sleeves.<p>

Toph wondered what the girl's parents thought about it. Maybe they'd liked it; being a Fire Nation noble family in the Earth Kingdoms had to be pretty dangerous. Maybe they'd been glad when she'd learned to chuck knives at people. Maybe they'd taught her.

She was awfully quiet. "Are you even still breathing?" Toph said.

"Unfortunately," the girl intoned flatly.

"What," Toph said, "you're not enjoying this? Bummer."

The girl sniffed. "Walking is boring," she said.

Toph snorted. "Too bad," she said. "I'm not carrying you."

The girl was conspicuously silent for a moment. "I wasn't planning to ask," she said, but this time there was a little dryness in her voice, a tiny inflection. "What are you, ten?"

"Thirteen!" Toph said. "Well—at Spring Festival, anyway."

"Then you're short," the girl said blandly. "I don't think my feet would leave the ground."

Toph rolled her eyes, but she didn't let it bother her—fine, maybe she was a little short, but she wasn't the one who'd been knocked down and tied up. Tall Girl and her buddies had that distinction all to themselves. "Bet you're not that much older than me," Toph said. "Although I guess _your_ parents were probably pretty glad to let you go with the—crown princess or whatever."

"They didn't mind," the girl agreed coolly. "You're Earth Kingdom—don't tell me yours minded letting you go with the Avatar."

It wasn't like being hit, like tripping or stumbling; there wasn't anything for Toph to brace herself against or catch herself partway through. Her eyes just started stinging. And it probably should have been because of regret, but it felt mostly like anger. Toph tipped her chin up and blinked twice, and then smiled defiantly at nothing, just because she could. "It wasn't up to them," she said.

"They really tried to stop you," the girl said, dubious.

"They—didn't understand," Toph said.

The girl was silent—startled, maybe—and Toph turned around before she could change her mind and start saying anything else. Katara was back there somewhere, Toph could feel her walking. Suki and Yue were measured, Yue a little lighter, and Sokka was unpredictable; but Katara always felt like she was about to break into a run. "Get up here," she shouted. "Don't think I couldn't tell earlier, your stance was terrible."

"It seemed to work okay," Katara yelled back, but she jogged up the side of the road until she caught up, and Toph made her punch out at the air until it was her hideous form that was making Toph angry, and not anything else.

.*.*.*.

Okay, so Toph and Katara were yelling at each other, and Professor Zei was going on about—about Fire Nation noble ranks, or something, while Hok Suan nodded politely and hid the occasional yawn in Eng Pin's shoulder. So it wasn't actually all that quiet.

But it _felt_ quiet back here, weirdly so. Sokka probably would have picked Suki to break the silent feeling with, except he was tongue-tied every time he glanced at her by the memory of waking up still holding her hand; so that left the guy Toph had cuffed up with rock. Which was also awkward, granted, but in a different way.

"So," Sokka said. "Do they make you do the dishes?"

"What?" the guy said.

Sokka motioned ahead of them: Katara had dragged that Princess Azula girl up front with her while she argued with Toph about how she was holding her elbows, and the girl who threw knives was up there, too; the other girl was walking by Professor Zei with Yue a pace away, brightly offering corrections now and again. "The girls," Sokka clarified. "Katara makes us take turns."

The guy looked at him more closely, like he thought maybe Sokka was kidding, so Sokka adjusted his expression to convey some extra sincerity. "They don't—make me," the guy said slowly. "I do it. It's—suitable."

"Suitable," Suki repeated, and this time, Sokka could share a glance with her without his face catching on fire. Making conversation with the guy they had tied up really had been a great idea.

"Mai is a governor's daughter," the guy said, tilting his chin forward in the direction of Knife Girl. "Ty Lee's a seventh child, but her parents are still titled. Princess Azula is Princess Azula." He shrugged his shoulders as best he could with his wrists weighted down. "I wash the dishes." He hesitated, and then his mouth quirked—possibly the first actual expression he'd gotten on his face the whole time. "Ty Lee helps sometimes—when she remembers."

"What," Sokka said, "you're not some nobleman's favorite son?"

The guy's face smoothed flat again. "Does it matter?"

"Just asking," Sokka said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we've still got kind of a long way to walk." The walls of Ba Sing Se looked closer than they were, thanks to their sheer size, but Sokka had seen the map, and it would still take them most of the rest of the day to get there. Maybe they could have gone faster—but Sokka wasn't about to start suggesting they make Hok Suan jog, or not let her rest now and again.

"Then maybe you should save your breath," the guy advised. It could have been mocking; it was impossible to tell. The guy's face showed nothing at all, and his tone was perfectly even, faintly deferent.

"You at least have a name, right?" Sokka said. "We can't just walk up to the king of Ba Sing Se and say, 'Here's three people with names and also this other guy.'"

The guy eyed him for a second, and then gave in—not visibly, his gaze was still narrow and wary, but he opened his mouth and said, "Samnang."

"There!" Sokka said. "That wasn't so hard. See, this doesn't have to be uncomfortable—except physically, for you, but, uh, we can't really fix that one."

"Mm," the guy said.

"You travel with the princess," Suki said, "but you're not a noble—did she hire you, then?"

Samnang looked at her for a long moment, like it was a question he'd never expected to hear, never imagined anyone would ask. "No," he said. "No, she doesn't pay." He glanced away for a second, up front, and then back. "She—asks."

"I guess it would be kind of hard to turn her down," Sokka said. "I mean, with her being crown princess and all."

"Yes," Samnang said, and now he was looking at the ground. "No one ever does."

.*.*.*.

"Your hair is gorgeous," Ty Lee said, when she couldn't hold it in anymore.

She had to say it right to the girl's face, or else she was going to keep thinking about it and imagining how she might say it and accidentally mentioning it to Azula. And there were few surer ways to irritate Azula than by telling her the same thing over and over again.

The girl blinked at her—even her _eyelashes_ were white, Ty Lee noticed—and then ducked her head. "Thank you," she said, charmingly polite even though she looked sort of confused.

Ty Lee smiled at her. "How'd it get that way?" she said. "I mean, was it always like that?"

"Not when I was born," the girl said, and she sounded like she'd said it a lot of times already—which, probably she had, people must have asked her about it all the time.

Ty Lee wasn't sure what she'd expected the answer to be, but it wasn't the one the girl calmly recited, a sick baby and a sacred pool and the reflection of the moon setting things alight like a cold spark. Ty Lee stared at her, but she didn't seem to be joking—it was like a thousand stories Ty Lee had heard before, the kind that were about why the crow duck's feathers were black and how the tiger buffalo had learned to roar, except this girl had one all to herself, to explain her own hair. And the moon had done it personally, too. "Was your mother a priestess?"

"In a way," the girl said, after a moment. "I suppose—a queen, perhaps. My father rules the city—"

"So you're a princess, like Azula," Ty Lee said.

The girl hesitated, and glanced up the road from under her white eyelashes. "Not very much like, I think," she said. "But a little bit, yes."

"And you lived in the north! I've never been—is it really ice everywhere?"

The girl looked for a second like she wanted to laugh. "Yes," she said. "Ice everywhere—and this time of year there's almost no daylight at all."

"No _daylight_?" It was weird to think of—the sun was a constant, a great spiritual power, and yet there was a place where it wandered off and left everybody in darkness. Maybe—maybe it was no wonder not every place had Firebenders. Who would they have learned from, with no dragons and no sun?

The girl smiled. "Very little," she clarified. "The sun does not—come up, not all the way. But it is close, just underneath the edge of the sky. Like twilight, or before dawn." She hesitated. "I am sorry—I am sorry we have to keep you bound up. I hope it's not painful."

"It's fine," Ty Lee said quickly, because the girl really did look sorry. "We'd have done the same thing to you. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything, honest; it's just walking's so dull. I know you're—you know, enemies, but—well, you're right there, and it'll be a while, and—"

"Truce," the girl proposed gently. "Until we reach the wall—we will hand you over, then, and if we meet again afterward I shall hit you as hard as I ever have."

"And I'll punch you and stuff," Ty Lee said. She meant it, really she did—and she said it like a promise because it _was_ a promise, much more than it was a threat, even though the words were actually kind of mean. Maybe that was why the girl laughed.

"Agreed," she said.

Ty Lee beamed. "I'm Ty Lee," she said, because she hadn't remembered to say it before, and if they were going to be temporary friends, the girl should probably know.

"I am Yue," the girl said. "And I think perhaps you ought to tell me something about yourself—I did answer you, about my hair."

"Well," Ty Lee said, "there's one other thing I should ask you first. Does the north have any circuses?"

.*.*.*.

Katara punched the way Toph told her to—or close enough to it that probably nobody could ever tell _except_ Toph. By the afternoon, though, she had apparently stopped choking all her energy up in her elbows, and Toph had started making her roll a boulder along beside them, shoving it another pace forward with every motion of her fist.

Katara couldn't believe their luck—and couldn't decide whether it was good or bad. First Prince Zuko, who might be right behind them for all they knew, and now Princess Azula; she hadn't even been looking for them, if what she'd said could be believed, and yet here she was. At this rate, the entire Fire Nation royal court would be waiting for them in Ba Sing Se. They'd caught the princess before she could start chasing them around the Earth Kingdoms, but who knew who might be after them next? The thought made Katara punch harder.

When it grew warm in the afternoon, they walked in the shadow of the train tracks; the arches that held up the empty track cast shade perfectly along the road, at least until the first break. Katara didn't even realize it was there until the shade vanished, sunlight falling abruptly hot on her neck. The boulder crunched to a stop beside her, and she let it; she was too busy staring up at the tracks.

A good half-dozen of the great arching columns had been toppled, crumpling sideways and downward, or cracked in the middle and tilted halfway over like broken sheets of ice. Professor Zei hadn't been kidding—no train could cross that gap, and the scale was so tremendous, it would have taken teams of Earthbenders to fix.

"Must have been hard to do," Aang said flatly, hovering at Katara's shoulder. He was looking at the long flat face of the nearest column, Katara realized. It was slanted in just the right way to face the sun, and the rock was pitted, blackened and slashed with fire. Like the Air Temples had been, except there hadn't been a hundred years of weather to soften it, here—only seven.

"General Iroh circled the city from the southeast," Professor Zei said, and for once it didn't sound as though he were reading from a book. "There were trains from the west until the very last moment, every crate of supplies anyone could get their hands on—until he brought down the tracks, even before he had rounded the wall. Devastating. We could not have lasted much longer, and there are tales—" He cut himself off, the first time he'd ever stopped talking without being asked; and he smiled a little when he glanced at Katara, but it didn't manage to change the somber cast of his face. "I have never eaten so much shoe leather. I—did not regret having the opportunity to depart on my search for the library, when it was over."

"Why did they stop?" Sokka said.

At that, the princess snorted, and everybody turned to look at her. "Because my uncle is a sentimental fool," she said, and she rolled her eyes. "Oh, he had promise, I suppose, and he was clever enough—he could never have come so close to victory otherwise." She shrugged one shoulder, briefly awkward with the weight of her cuffed wrists behind her back. "But he lacked the strength to complete what he began. He failed us. My cousin was valuable, but even he was not worth so much."

"It was considered a great day for the city when Prince Lu Ten was killed," Professor Zei said neutrally. "I believe the woman who did it was given a title, and an estate within the outer wall."

Princess Azula gave him a flat look, and did not reply.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second," Sokka said. "You think he's an idiot because he didn't feel like sieging the city anymore after his _kid_ died?"

"He failed," Princess Azula said. "He deserved to lose his title. He could never have been a worthy Fire Lord, after such a thing."

"Aaaaand that makes two hundred and _seven_ reasons I'm glad I'm not Fire Nation," Sokka said, making a face.

Katara could picture General Iroh, vaguely—he'd been on the ship when they'd looked from the lighthouse in Shinsotsu, but Katara hadn't been paying close attention. She remembered gray hair, a beard, a round face; that was all. Nothing that had made her think he had once nearly crushed Ba Sing Se, had had learned professors eating shoes. And then he'd stopped, he'd let it all go, because his son had died. It seemed weird, but not because she agreed with Azula—because he sounded like a legend, an unstoppable general, someone more than human, except all it had taken to stop him was grief.

Like the Avatar, she thought. Like Avatars who were afraid, uncertain, who lost children and husbands and everybody they'd ever known—it sounded contradictory, but only if you didn't look. Only if you didn't think about it.

"Here's an idea," Toph said. "Let's stop talking about people's feelings and keep walking! Come on, sugar queen, get that rock moving."

.*.

The sun sank gradually lower behind them, the red-lit walls looming nearer and nearer, and finally Toph let Katara take a real break. "Yeah, all right, don't break your arms," she said, and shoved the boulder away with a punch of her own until it skidded down into the ditch.

The road had gotten smoother, this close to the city; the outer wall was so long that it looked nearly like a straight line, even though Katara knew it had to be a curve. Even the Fire Nation princess looked up at it with something like admiration on her haughty face.

Until she noticed Katara looking at her, that is, at which point she raised an eyebrow and her expression turned disdainful again. She'd been quiet, and very calm, considering she was the princess of the Fire Nation and they were marching her to Ba Sing Se; her sharp snide face had never lost that superiority. She seemed like the kind of person who wasn't ever uncertain—who always knew what she meant to do next, and would always manage to do it.

Maybe she should have been the Avatar.

"I don't know why you let her speak to you that way," the princess said—drawled, really, slow and thick like each word was so enjoyable she didn't want to let it go.

Katara sniffed and looked away, strangely angry. _She_ was allowed to get mad at Toph, she understood precisely how annoying Toph was; but this Princess Azula hadn't crossed the mountains or sailed the desert, fought scorpion wasps or held up a bridge. What did she know about it, anyway? "She's my friend," Katara said, realizing in the instant she said it that it was actually a little bit true. "She can speak to me any way she wants to."

"Mm," the princess said, managing to make even that sound dubious.

"Oh, and you make your friends call you Highness, I suppose," Katara said, and rolled her eyes. Was Prince Zuko like this, too?

"I'm not the Avatar," the princess said, tone suddenly mild. "The Avatar should command respect."

Katara thought about Roku, Roku and his two temples and only three sages who served him as he hoped they might, no matter how many had prayed to his memory and thought they honored him well. Respect was complicated. "I haven't really earned it," she said aloud. "Although delivering the princess of the Fire Nation to the king of Ba Chang won't hurt."

She meant it to sting, and maybe it did, a little; Princess Azula gave her a flat look and then deliberately turned back to the wall. "And then what?" she said.

Katara snorted. "As if I'd tell you." It made her suddenly angry—angrier—that Azula had looked away, and she grabbed the princess's elbow and yanked her to a halt, so she could glare right into her yellow eyes. "But even if I did," she said, "you wouldn't stop me," and it felt like she was saying it to the whole Fire Nation, to every red-armored soldier who'd ever stabbed an aunt or a cousin in front of her, to every sailor who had stormed Kanjusuk and been repaid with the ocean's anger. "I won't fail—I can't. It's too important." She let the princess go with a shake, and hoped Toph's stone cuffs scraped when she did.

But Princess Azula didn't seem angry. She looked at Katara for a moment, slick sharp mouth quirked a little, and then she said, "You'll have to get inside the wall first."

.*.

"The Gate of Harmonious Tranquility," Professor Zei declared, gazing up the side of the wall. It certainly looked like a gate, in a lot of ways—they'd had to go through one a lot like it to get into Gaoling, though of course that had been much smaller. The wall was even taller here than everywhere else, thicker by a dozen paces for the whole width of the road, and marked at the top with a great arching roof; probably a gatehouse, though it was much too far off, all the way up the wall, to tell for sure.

The train tracks had curved over, arches widening out to span the road like they were walking underneath a great huge creature—like they were underneath Appa and his six legs, Katara thought, except if she said it no one would understand what she meant but Aang. And there was a hole for it, a tunnel, made to let the trains that no longer ran this way through the wall.

But that was high over their heads—at ground level, there was nothing at all.

"There is a schedule," Professor Zei said apologetically. "Not every gate is open every day—I believe it was first instituted in the time of King—well." He cleared his throat. "At any rate, it may no longer be relevant—with the road little-used and the trains not running, this gate may too be closed to passage."

"There was a time when I would have thought this was totally ridiculous," Sokka said, "calling a blank wall a gate, but I think we've been spending too much time in the Earth Kingdoms—it must work just like the ferry place." He touched his knuckles to the unbroken, gateless wall. "Don't suppose there's a helpful gang of soldiers around this time."

"Bound to be somebody up top," Toph said.

Katara turned, but Aang was already moving. "Just a minute," he called back over his shoulder, and when he zoomed back down he was smiling. "There's soldiers everywhere—they'll be able to hold the princess, no problem. And inside—it's amazing, Katara."

"Told you," Toph said, when Katara relayed this, and then she clapped her hands together. "Come on, sugar queen. This'll be a lot more your speed than the other stuff."

Five minutes of practice, and Toph declared her acceptable, if inexpert. They gathered in a half-circle by the wall, and then Toph cracked the ground loose around them with a well-placed stomp. And she was right: the bending moves that served to draw their little piece of earth up the side of the wall were so smooth it was nearly Waterbending. Katara's end wobbled a little at first, but she kept an eye on Toph's hands and tried to match up, and soon everything evened out.

"You can see _everything_," Sokka said, looking out over her shoulder; and when they reached the top and she could finally turn around, she could see that he was right. The glimmer in the distance had to be the Yellow Seas, and every step they'd taken between here and the Pass was laid out to see, like they were standing over a rolled-out map, with red-gold light spilled across it like paint.

"It's beautiful," Hok Suan said. "We owe you so much for this," and she took both Katara's hands and touched her forehead to the backs, about as low as she could bend with her belly so round.

"Oh—no, really, it wasn't—"

Hok Suan straightened up and smiled. "Gratitude is like every other feeling, Avatar; it won't go away because you tell it not to be there. Best to accept it."

"Anybody would have," Katara said, her face still hot.

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Eng Pin said. "But I think you might agree that not anybody _could_ have, all things considered. So we are grateful."

"What are you doing here?"

Katara whirled around, startled—that hadn't been Eng Pin, and it wasn't Professor Zei, either. Aang had been entirely accurate: there were soldiers on the walltop, green-armored, and they were lined up behind a stern-faced officer with no weapon in his hands at all and feet almost as bare as Toph's, covered only at the heel.

"Civilians are not allowed on the wall," the officer said. "Particularly not civilians who bring the Fire Nation with them."

"Fire Nation _prisoners_," Toph said loudly. "Speaking of gratitude." She'd ended up next to Princess Azula; she grabbed the princess by one elbow and yanked her forward, and it had to be obvious even to the officer that the princess's hands were trapped behind her back, even if he couldn't see exactly how from where he was. "You'd think you'd be glad to have the crown princess dropped in your lap."

"But, of course," Professor Zei added, "we would be authorized to enter the city in any case, though perhaps we would have been better advised to find an open gate." He still had his dusty papers folded away; he brought them out and handed them to the officer, and unlike the ferry woman, the officer glanced at them and his expression cleared.

"Of course," he said, "guests of the university. You should not have scaled the wall—but I suppose you were eager to bring your prisoners somewhere they could be held safely." He looked at Azula again, at the flame that caught up her hair. "And she does fit the description. Sometimes fortune requires us to make certain—allowances."

"Precisely so," Professor Zei said. "The princess Azula and her companions; or Fire Nation spies hoping to be ransomed if caught; or collaborators of some kind. No matter the explanation, it is a pleasure to hand them off to those better informed and better equipped than we."

He sounded like Yue when she'd been talking to Master Yu, Katara thought; and he was good at it, almost as good as Yue was. He hadn't gone for the obvious, talked about how upstanding the officer was or how well he and his troops would obviously handle such a dangerous group. He'd taken something not unlike the truth, and made it sound like praise instead of the simple fact it was; and the officer was smiling.

"Yun Ho, Chao, take them away," he said, motioning with one hand.

Two of the men behind him each nodded to half a dozen others and then jogged forward. Two took the princess, and there was one each for the other three, with enough soldiers left over to surround them in a ring and march them away toward the gatehouse.

"Most excellent, most excellent," the officer said, watching them go; and then he turned back to Professor Zei and bowed. "Welcome to Ba Sing Se."

* * *

><p>They had come up from the south with wind and current both behind them, and made fine time. The distance had gone almost too quickly, in fact; Yin couldn't say she would have minded another day on the water, with clear concise orders to follow and no decisions to make.<p>

But no such luck: they had reached the south of Chameleon Bay, and Admiral Paozun had been ready and waiting.

It was impressive, really, that the Fire Nation had a foothold in the east at all. The colonies were an anchor for them in the west, and after a hundred years there had been forts there longer than most people had been alive. It wasn't all that hard to hold territory like that.

But the southeastern kingdoms had barely been touched, until about ten years ago. Yin had heard the edges of it, mostly through the filter of Zhao's declarations that he could have done it better: General Tamang had taken three-quarters of the peninsulas and even begun to siege Bokjeo, before the Southern Water Tribe warriors and a fleet from Cheolla had tipped the balance the other way.

But they still held a good chunk of the western bay and northern coast, and the forward bases on the scattered islands had mostly remained intact.

Yin had been ordered to the main base, near where the Tai San emptied into the bay, and almost the moment she'd set foot on solid ground, Admiral Paozun had been there pounding her on the shoulder.

"No need to worry, Sub-Admiral," Paozun said, with a booming laugh; he still hadn't taken his hand off her arm, and he kept clapping her with it as though to punctuate. She was fairly certain she would have a bruise. "Your cargo is prepared and ready to load, and we are still holding the northeast and the mouth of the river, despite those icelickers and their toy boats." He turned away to spit in disgust. "Damned nuisances they are, but they won't keep us back forever."

"Of course not," Yin said studiously. "But tell me, Admiral—should I have been worried?"

Paozun finally let her go and sank down into the nearest seat; his tent was twice the size Kizao's had been, and much more lavishly furnished. "Well," he said, "there was some question as to the arrangements. There was—an unexpected difficulty in obtaining your cargo in a timely fashion. I hear one of the war ministers himself was involved in the trouble." He waved a hand, as though to brush all this away. "No matter now, though; it was handled some time before we had word to make ready, and with the fleet you've got you'll have it to the coast as quickly as the princess could wish." He chuckled. "Bet that minister's thanking the spirits he got things worked out—he wouldn't have liked the princess breathing down his neck."

"For the greater glory of our nation," Yin said.

The words felt strange, clumsy, and the sentiment clumsier; for a moment, Yin half expected Paozun to let out that belly-shaking laugh. But he only nodded earnestly. "Oh, of course, of course," he said, "no harm meant. The princess is zealous in her duty—much to be admired. But even war ministers can only work so fast, and I wouldn't have cared to be him if he hadn't managed it."

"No," Yin agreed.

Admiral Paozun smiled. "But as I said, everything's prepared; we can begin loading this afternoon, and then you can be on your way up the river."

Yin swallowed, and as though from some distance away, she could feel her heart begin to pound. Surely—surely they meant to assault Yushao, or to head overland to Wenling. Surely. "Up the river," she repeated.

Paozun grinned. "Oh, indeed," he said. "For the greater glory of our nation, Sub-Admiral, as you say—and you'll have a hand in it yourself, most likely."

"I do not deserve the honor," Yin said, and made herself smile back.

.*.

She walked back to the ship in something of a haze, and, as always, Kishen seemed to know it was coming; he was waiting at attention on the deck, and fell in beside her as she moved toward the bridge. "Enlightening talk, sir?" he said.

"Very," Yin said. "Whatever it is we'll be carrying, it'll go up the river."

"Toward Ba Sing Se."

Yin pursed her lips. "The admiral was not specific," she said.

"Northward," Kishen revised, "and we will no doubt unload on the shore of the South Yellow Sea. The eastern shore, potentially."

Yin sighed. "Potentially. There is a plan, to be sure; Admiral Paozun's orders come from Princess Azula, as mine did in the west."

"The Dragon of the West had a plan," Kishen murmured.

She gave him a sharp glance, and his expression turned mild; but she knew what he was thinking. Admiral Paozun was no Dragon of the West—and neither was Yin. In a hundred years, no one had come closer to capturing Ba Sing Se than General Iroh, and had he been successful the cost would still have been high, if justifiable.

But surely if anyone knew that, his niece did. She would not only have been taught about it, she might well have heard it herself. Before Yin had ever dragged the man north, killed an officer in front of him, and escorted his less-than-dead exile nephew south, he had lived in the palace in the capital—surely such things had been spoken of many times in the princess's hearing.

And in any case, Yin reminded herself, the attack was not her concern. She was only to carry her cargo up the river and unload it. The rest was up to someone else.

* * *

><p>To their credit, Azula supposed, the soldiers were relatively orderly. But they had been so for too long, without enough additional discipline imposed; they were so used to order that they were not observant. As long as everything was where it was supposed to be, they did not look more closely.<p>

She waited until they had descended the wall, of course. She was not a fool. They were lowered down into the city in a closed space, surrounded by rock; there was nowhere to go, and plenty of unpleasant things that a trained group of Earthbenders could do to them.

They did not come out on ground level, but at the train. The tracks remained broken outside the city walls, perhaps, but not inside, and the soldiers undoubtedly had need of transport to and from the city proper. It was still some distance to the true city—so much space, so many walls.

None of it, Azula thought, would do them any good.

They had to wait for a time before a train arrived, and they were not the only cargo—supplies had come out, no doubt, and reinforcements, and reports and soldiers who had been relieved went in. Azula allowed herself to be led onto the train, and sat quietly through the ride; Ty Lee spent it gazing raptly out the window and exclaiming over every little field or bush they passed, while Mai sat next to her and rolled her eyes at intervals, and Samnang appeared to have fallen asleep. Only once did she catch Mai's eye; she looked deliberately at the door to the train car, and when she looked back Mai nodded once, so slightly that she might simply have been tipped by the rocking of the train. _Let them take you off the train_, she had meant to convey; and Mai would do it.

The train ground to a halt again at the edge of the city proper, and Mai stood up first and then turned to Ty Lee, neatly blocking Azula in. "Come on," she said, "wake him up," and Ty Lee obediently tapped Samnang's shin with her toes.

"Mmrgh," he said, but he got up quickly enough—no doubt he'd been awake the whole time, and listening to everything even if his eyes had been shut.

Azula was already sitting forward because of the cuffs around her wrists, and she had to look as though she were ready to stand at any moment; it took the officer a minute to realize she wasn't moving.

"Well?" he said.

Azula didn't answer. She didn't even let her face twitch. Samnang was off the train now, standing on the platform looking placid, and Ty Lee was looking in awe at the rest of the station; Mai had three steps left, two, one ...

The officer made a grab for her arm, but he was more irritated than alarmed—he was not expecting the foot she planted in his gut, and with her shoulders braced against the side of the train, she was able to shove him entirely to the floor. He fell with a yelp, and she leapt to her feet and clenched her fists. It was difficult, she had been told, to manage the kind of sheer burst of heat needed to crack stone, but she had never found it so; it had always felt to her as though the fire were ready to leap free, and that the effort came in keeping it within herself, in preventing herself from setting everything she touched aflame.

The cuffs around her wrists burst apart with a crunch, sending shards of rock flying around half the train car; the other half of the force went into her lower back. She would feel it tomorrow, deeply—but now all there was to feel was the air on her free wrists, and the smile that crept across her face as she looked down at the Earth Kingdom officer on the floor.

She pulled a sharp heat into her fingers, enough for a thin blue flame to form. He tried to shuffle away, belatedly, but he was not fast enough to keep her from grabbing his ankle; he cried out with pain as her hand burned through cloth and struck skin.

"_Quiet_," she said, and he was; and as a reward, she pulled the energy back until her hands were only fever-warm. "The train will go to the city, won't it?"

He nodded.

"Good. You will get up, and you will go to the door—with me behind you—and tell your soldiers to uncuff my friends and let them back on the train. And give them their cloaks, while they're at it. You will tell them whatever they need to hear in order for this train to proceed into the city; and if we reach the next stop without interruption and are able to depart safely, I probably won't kill you."

The officer swallowed. "Probably," he repeated.

Azula grinned, baring her teeth. "It's the best you're going to get," she said. "Now get up."


	19. Calculations, Part 1

There have been a couple new faves/follows, to me as well as to the story; thank you all so much, I'm so glad you're enjoying this! :D If you like the way the eclipse occurs in canon, I apologize—I couldn't stand to leave it that way. Eclipses happen all the time! Over ridiculously small areas of a planet's surface! I had to find a way to make it work that made sense to me and my amateur understanding of astronomy. Hopefully it'll make sense to you also—or at least won't be too boring. I've also changed the structure of the Dai Li around a bit; the differences should be pretty clear pretty quickly, and will become clearer over the next few chapters, but if you have questions please don't hesitate to ask. Enjoy the chapter!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10: Calculations<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>"Around the south of the island," Min Kyung said, and frowned down at their maps. "Is that truly the best approach? So much open water—"<p>

Hakoda bit his tongue, quite literally, and carefully did not return Mikama's incredulous stare. "Yes," he said, "I believe so. You must remember: our ships cannot match the Fire Nation in size, but they are quick, and make very small targets."

He would not have had to say it to Seung Won; but Seung Won was gone, reassigned to the west where there was greater need.

When they had first come to Bokjeo, sailing halfway around the continent, there had been no greater need than at the coast of Chameleon Bay, and the finest generals in Bongye had all been at hand. Seung Won had been the best of them, and had seen every merit and flaw the Southern Water Tribe had to offer before Hakoda could even spell them out.

They had only a few ships. They were beautiful ships, hard light wood, and faster than anything the Earth Kingdoms could muster. Earth Kingdom ships tended toward a traditional shape with a wide flat bottom, made for shallow bays, for rivers, for calm water—not for sweeping between icebergs or slicing through waves.

And they were quick ships—fast, yes, but also quick, which was not quite the same thing. Fire Nation ships could be fast, could build themselves up to speeds nothing else could match; but they did have to _build_, to run their boilers hot and high, to have a long straight line to sail in. Southern Tribe ships turned well, could round a Fire Nation battleship a dozen times before it could even manage to come about. There were no long straight lines among the ice floes.

But they were few, and they were small. And Hakoda's people did not fit into battalions, did not work under generals. They had learned to handle their spears as children, hunting fish and birds and tiger seals, fighting the Fire Lord's raiding parties away from the village with their uncles and aunts and cousins beside them. They did not fight in armored rows.

And Seung Won had seen all this, and had seen that Hakoda knew it, too; and it had been easy to convince him to put the Southern Tribe warriors to their best use. They had saved Bokjeo and fought the Fire Nation back away from the walls, back to the water. And the worst of the danger had gone—and with it Seung Won.

And now they had Min Kyung.

A general's aide, who had been promoted for his excellent service. There were many things Hakoda did not understand about the Earth Kingdoms, even after years spent fighting alongside them. Taking a man who had proven so thoroughly that he could follow orders well and forcing him to give them instead—this was one of them. Following orders was a skill like any other; some people did it well and some people did not, and it did not seem like a reward to Hakoda, to be taken from a thing you did well and made to do a thing you did poorly.

And perhaps it hadn't seemed so to Min Kyung, either; but what could he do about it? It was hard to refuse an honor—that, at least, Hakoda understood.

Min Kyung sighed, and gazed down at the map. "If you say you can do it," he said, "then I must believe; you have been here far longer than I."

"We will not steer you wrong," said Mikama, and she managed to make it sound reassuring, though Hakoda could tell by the purse of her mouth that she wanted to roll her eyes.

Min Kyung glanced at her quickly, as though he had not expected her to speak; and then he nodded, sharp and a little awkward.

That was another thing about the Earth Kingdoms Hakoda did not understand. It was not so in every kingdom, he knew, and perhaps they had their reasons, here, to leave women at home who could surely have held blades. They put great stock in bending, still, where Hakoda had been forced to learn to do without; and women who could bend, they were willing to employ among their forces. But that was all. And there was a deeper difference, one that it had taken Hakoda some time to notice. All of the Earth officers Hakoda had met were men; and they were not precisely rude to the Water Tribe women so much as they simply—forgot. Even Seung Won had forgotten, now and again, that he might discuss their plans with Mikama or Ukara as readily as with Hakoda, and had spoken to Hakoda sometimes as though there were no one else in the room.

Min Kyung had set his hand upon the map, prodding one of the little blue markers that sat upon it; and he was opening his mouth as though to ask another question when there was a sudden clamor in the hall.

"Whatever is that?" he said instead, turning toward the door; and a moment later, the scout who came through it answered his question.

"For the general," the man said, clearly enough though he was half out of breath, and he bowed low. "A report of great urgency—a Fire Nation fleet in the bay, sir. It's moving."

.*.

They could stand upon the walls of Bokjeo now without having to worry that they would be shot where they stood, or catch aflame; they could be at their ease for as long as it took to focus the spyglass, and could observe the fleet one at a time and look their fill.

"They do not move as though to come here," Min Kyung said.

He passed the glass to Hakoda. It was true, Hakoda could see. Even without the glass—the ships were outlined in profile against the haze over the bay, the faint shimmer that was the edge of the further shore. They were not headed east toward Bokjeo, but north, toward ... what?

"What encampments they have on the north shore are very small," Mikama said. "I doubt they would send so many ships. And these have already passed north of the islands."

"The Tai San," Hakoda suggested. It was the only answer that made any sense; but what did they need with the river? Did they mean to capture the North Yellow Sea? To secure supply lines to the colonies—but they already had the Smoking Sea, there was no more convenient route for the Fire Nation in the world. Or—but, no, surely not—

"Ba Sing Se," Ukara said. They had passed her on their way to the wall, and Hakoda had caught her eye and tipped his head; she had followed, and now she was standing at the parapet with her arms crossed, gazing out at the Fire Nation ships like she could scuttle them all if she glared hard enough. "Surely it cannot have sat easily with them, to come so close and then lose so much. Surely it was expected that one day they would try again."

If it had been expected, it had not been by Min Kyung. "But—but they _failed_," he said. "They failed, the very Dragon of the West failed, and they have no Dragon of the West anymore—Ba Chang has felt no fear in its heart in seven years—"

"Then Ba Chang is full of fools," said Ukara flatly, and Hakoda could not precisely disagree.

Min Kyung stared at her, his mouth open, and Hakoda could not think how to say what should be said so as to make the man see without also making him panic; and then into the silence Mikama cleared her throat.

"We don't _know_," she pointed out. "It certainly seems likely, I would say, given what we are able to see even from here. But we do not know anything, not really. Those ships could be carrying anything—reinforcements for the South Yellow Sea, or supplies to set up a new base along the Tai San. We cannot say what they may be attempting."

"Then we must find out," Ukara said.

.*.

They had captured a Fire Nation ship not a month ago—it was one of a very, very small number that had not met their end by sinking into Chameleon Bay. Earthbenders did not tend toward restraint when they found themselves with the upper hand. It was also somewhat dented, but when Min Kyung pointed this out, Ukara only shrugged.

"That is what would happen to a small patrol ship separated from its fleet," she said. "We cannot follow them without them seeing us, and we cannot let them see us unless we have an explanation; that is as good as any."

And it was a fair point: if the ship had been in the waters near the city, had narrowly escaped the fate of its fellows, it would have been at least a little damaged—indeed, excluding the capture, that was precisely what had happened to it, and it was harder to maintain a lie than to maintain three-quarters of the truth. They had uniforms and armor, too, stripped from the prisoners they had taken. They could pass for Fire Nation well enough, as long as no one looked them in the eye. Better, even, than most of Min Kyung's legions could have done; an Earth battalion would not have lasted long pretending to be Fire Nation without a single woman among them.

They would need perhaps a dozen people—it was not a large ship, and so much of it was machinery that it needed fewer people to run than it might have otherwise. Bato was returned to them, and hale; he volunteered in a moment, stepping up before Hakoda had even finished speaking. Ukara would not be left out of her own plan, nor would Mikama let them sail off without her, and it took minutes to pick out the other eight.

"The rest will stay," Hakoda told Min Kyung, who sighed in relief to hear it. "We will follow them up the Tai San, and see where they go; and with any luck we will return."

"Then I wish you all the luck in the world," Min Kyung said, and bowed.

* * *

><p>Suki knew she probably looked foolish, but she couldn't help it; she couldn't keep her mouth from hanging open as the train rumbled closer and closer to the wall.<p>

Really, that was half the shock: they hadn't even reached the wall. Ba Sing Se was sort of like an onion, layered, walls within walls—and the way everybody talked about it, you weren't even in the real city until you'd passed another one. But they hadn't, they were barely halfway there, and yet you wouldn't have known it, looking out the window.

Or Suki wouldn't have, at least. She'd been to Kyoha, now and then, and thought it was pretty impressive—Manamota was a dozen houses and a hall, farms and fields scattered out further among the hills, and Kyoha had been positively bustling by comparison.

And then Katara had come along, and they'd gone from city to city to even larger city, between all the stretches of sea and forest and plain in between. Suki hadn't thought she'd ever see anything more remarkable than Kanjusuk—what could ever beat a city made from ice?

But the sheer _size_ of this place—there were twenty Shinsotsus laid out below them now, twenty Hansings, buildings churning past beneath like waves as the train rushed by.

"Impressive," Toph muttered.

Suki turned to her. Obviously she wasn't looking out the window; but she had one bare foot pressed flat to the floor of the train car, and surely she could at least feel the size of the train tracks, how high they had to be to go over everything.

"Very," Suki said, sincerely, and was surprised when Toph snorted.

"Doesn't matter how much space they give you," she said, "if there's still a wall around it."

_It's to protect people_, Suki almost said, except she could still remember Toph's parents in their walled garden: _we're only keeping you safe_. Safety wasn't much of a reason for anything, not to Toph. "It's beautiful," she said instead, because it was: towers and arched roofs stretched out into the distance so far they got lost in the haze, and the first inner wall of the city rose up in front of them like a cliff.

"... Did you do that on purpose?" Toph raised an eyebrow.

Suki blinked and thought about it, and then wanted to clap a hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean it like that!" she said quickly. "I just—"

"Relax, relax," Toph said, and finally cracked a smile, reaching up to fold her arms behind her head. "I get it. I'm sure it's real pretty."

Suki blew out a breath, half of a laugh, and poked Toph's shin with her boot. "I guess you can't get much when we're going so fast."

Toph shrugged one shoulder, wriggling her toes against the train floor. "Enough," she said. "It's—it's just a city. I mean, I don't want to crush anybody's dreams, but it's not better, it's not worse. It's just—bigger."

Suki glanced down the train car. It was a civilian train, the guard trains went much faster; and there weren't all that many civilians moving to or from the outer wall, so they'd been able to spread out. Hok Suan and Eng Pin were a seat down, the swish and rumble of the train loud enough that they couldn't have heard anything Toph said, and they were both gazing out the window with wondering little smiles on their faces.

"Probably more people with knives here than there ever were in the ferry station," Toph murmured.

"But with nothing to stab us for," Suki said.

Toph's mouth quirked. "Nothing at all," she agreed, "except the thing about the eclipse. And the thing with the Avatar. And the thing where we try to get an audience with the king to share our military secrets—"

Suki pressed her lips together, but it wasn't enough to keep her from laughing. "We're getting so good at not dying, though," she said, and touched the toe of her boot to Toph's shin again, more gently. "I think we'll be all right."

"Sure we will." Toph's tone was blithe. "Anybody tries anything, I'll break their heads."

"Of course," Suki said. "You could even let the Avatar help, if you wanted."

Toph pursed her lips, expression exaggeratedly thoughtful. "Maybe." She hesitated, and then pressed her leg back against Suki's foot for a moment, companionably. "She's—she's okay. But don't tell her I said that."

"Never," Suki said.

.*.

They crossed the first wall before midday, and began passing over what Professor Zei called the Lower Ring. "The university is not here, of course," he said, as though it would have been impossibly foolish to think so. "There is nothing of note to be found in the Lower Ring."

"But it's _huge_," Sokka said, and the tone of his voice was marveling. Suki snuck a glance at him and nearly laughed aloud: he was kneeling on the seat with a hand pressed to the window, staring out with wide eyes.

But, to be fair, he wasn't wrong. The Lower Ring had even more buildings, though Suki wouldn't have thought it possible, all jammed tight together, with streets winding narrowly in between. It was impossible to imagine how many people must live in it—and there was at least one more wall ahead of them, a whole other district where the university stood.

Professor Zei, though, seemed far less impressed. He had lived in Ba Sing Se for years, of course, but Suki didn't think that explained the slant to his mouth, the faint wrinkling of his nose. "It is not—well-monitored," he said, "and riddled with criminals and malfeasants. No one who is careful ends up in the Lower Ring. It is best we steer clear of it."

He would know, Suki supposed—and even she could see there was a difference, when they reached the wall around the Middle Ring. The buildings were taller, prettier; there were more spaces between them, and more trees to fill those spaces, and the train station was far cleaner.

"Here we are," Professor Zei said, when the train rumbled to a stop, and clapped his hands together. And then he began describing the construction and history of Pear Blossom Station, but Suki was starting to get used to that.

"And the university?" she said, when he paused to breathe.

"Oh, not far," he said, "not far at all," and he stood and gestured them all toward the train door.

.*.*.*.

The university was probably real pretty, too, not that Toph could know for certain. She liked the way it felt, though. It was big, old, with deep foundations, and the buildings felt—graceful, sort of; nicer than anything that had zipped by below them on their way over the Lower Ring, for sure. They were wide and solid, thick walls that sang with every footstep like they were bells, and she could feel the carved doorways, the arches, the eaves that swept out and up at the edges.

It was walled-in, of course—these guys really loved their walls—but it could have been a lot worse. There were people everywhere, students rushing back and forth and shouting, hefting books under their arms; but it had nothing of the choking tension of the ferry station, no creeping fear.

The professor wouldn't shut up about it, how it had been founded a zillion years ago and how _this_ building was named after some rich guy and _that_ building had been constructed to honor some lady sage. Toph ignored most of it in favor of concentrating on the wind against her face, the weak sunshine—and then the professor stopped with an oomph when somebody going by whacked into his shoulder.

"Terribly sorry," said whoever it was, "I meant to—_Zei_?"

"Taoyi!" Professor Zei said, genially, and there was the tickle of a firm handshake and the sound of a few friendly claps on the shoulder. "Excellent to see you—you will be so pleased, my friend—"

"Pleased that I no longer have to do all your paperwork," said this Taoyi guy, but then he laughed. "I will never let anyone nominate me for interim department head again."

Great, Toph thought. Another one.

"Your sacrifices will be appreciated by generations to come," Professor Zei said loftily. "My fieldwork was most productive—and, in fact, I have generously brought the field to you. If, of course, there is time, Avatar—"

Taoyi went still, hearing it, barely a shiver from his direction except the sudden jump of his heartbeat.

"I—guess there should be," Katara said uncertainly, "if we can't get to the observatory right away—or after, once we know for sure."

"Yes, of course," Taoyi said, "the Southern Water Tribe—and the Northern, too, how extraordinary—how far did you _go_, Zei?"

"In point of fact, they came to me," Professor Zei admitted. "But I apologize—I am afraid we must postpone your interviews for a short time. Tell me, is the observatory staffed today?"

"Yes—yes," Taoyi said, and Toph could hear the scrape of his shoes as he turned to gesture. "I believe Dae Hyun means to teach this evening; I imagine he will be there. Did you intend to bring him an early class?"

The guy had a point: Hok Suan and Eng Pin were still following along, after all, and with Sokka and Suki, Katara and Yue—and none of them could see Aang, Toph reminded herself, but technically he was still there.

"Oh—yes, of course," Professor Zei said, and turned around. "I insist you stay at the university, at least until you have found another place," and he had to be talking to Hok Suan and Eng Pin. It was kind of cute, how they tried to refuse, but Taoyi took up the cause and led them off, assuring Professor Zei that he would settle all the arrangements for them with the university staff.

"Compared to what you left for me," he said, "this paperwork will be nothing."

"Most excellent," said Professor Zei, and then he tipped into a little bow in Katara's general direction. "This way to the observatory, Avatar."

* * *

><p>A guest star—another, and this one some measure brighter than the last. Dae Hyun shuffled through papers until he had found the one he'd been looking for. Yes, some measure brighter; the observer had noted so. Dae Hyun squinted down at the sheet. Fu Min, from the second class. Her brushwork was terrible, but she had clearly done her research.<p>

But of course they would have to consult. Fortunately the astrology department was not far. Dae Hyun was not incompetent—one could not hope to succeed as an astronomer without some knowledge of the workings of the spirit world—but he had concentrated his studies elsewhere—

Ah, the sound of the door—perhaps he was lucky today, under the influence of this guest star. Perhaps it would be Professor Lien, or Professor Kim, and he would not have to go to the astrology building at all.

But when Dae Hyun came away from his table and glanced around the screen to see the main door, it was not Professor Lien, nor Professor Kim.

Dae Hyun blinked, and tried to remember the man's name. Anthropology, anthropology—Dae Hyun knew that much, but what would an anthropology professor want with him?

"I hope we are not interrupting," said—Zei, of course, that was it. Out on fieldwork, Dae Hyun had thought; but apparently he had returned.

"No, no, not at all," Dae Hyun said, though it was not precisely so. Still, he could not say he minded the excuse to remain where he was. He was always loathe to leave his stars.

Zei was not alone, there were—five with him? Dae Hyun eyed them. It was true that the students tended to look younger and younger as the years passed, but surely these were still too young.

"If we may beg your pardon," Zei said. "I have brought the Avatar, and a question you may be able to answer."

The Avatar—one of the Water Tribe girls, no doubt, or else the boy beside them, and where had Zei gone on his fieldwork to find them? Never mind find whichever one of them was the _Avatar_?

"Well," said Dae Hyun slowly. "If it is a question to which I have the answer, how could I refuse?"

.*.

Eclipses—perhaps he should have guessed. "It is quite fascinating," Dae Hyun said. "It was determined a very long time ago that such phenomena are a function of the motion of the moon and sun, but of course that is not all there is to it. As those bodies influence the spirit world, so does the spirit world influence them in return."

"Right, yeah, of course," Sokka said—he had been the first to tell Dae Hyun his name. He paused, and then shifted from foot to foot. "What does that mean?"

Dae Hyun permitted himself a smile. "You must know, of course, that the moon shares the nature of water," and he nodded toward—Katara, the dark-haired one was Katara. And the Avatar. He had thought her young, and yet in some ways it was a miracle that she had reached the age she had. "The moon reflects whatever light touches it, as water does; and the sun, like fire, burns with light of its own. The moon is not the same thing as the moon spirit, though they are also not separate—"

"Like Katara's the Avatar," Sokka said, "but also just Katara."

"Precisely," Dae Hyun agreed. "Eclipses are not terribly uncommon, in fact; the moon and sun pass near each other every month, and the sun is eclipsed at least in part several times over the course of a year. But the effect of such on the spirit of the sun, and on Firebending, is negligible. It is a dragon eclipse that you hope for, and those fall far more rarely—a hundred years may pass at a time without such a one, though you are quite correct in thinking we may be due for another."

"A dragon eclipse?" Katara said.

"When the spirit world and the heavens manage to align," Dae Hyun said. "Or so it is held in the Fire Nation, as best I understand it. Firebending is a gift of the dragons, you see; in ancient times, it was said to be a reminder of humility, so that Firebenders would not forget to what and whom they owed their power."

"_It_ was," Sokka said, leadingly.

"There are eclipses and then there are eclipses," Dae Hyun elaborated. "On a day when an eclipse might have been full but otherwise unspectacular, the celestial dragon, now and again, will swallow the sun—and _that_ is an eclipse that covers the entire face of the world. That is not merely the moon's shadow; that is a day of black sun. And Firebending on such a day, at least for a time, is a lantern, snuffed—a candle, blown out."

Sokka scrunched up his face. "Swallow the—but not the _actual_ sun—"

"The sun and not the sun," Dae Hyun said. "Such is the nature of the spirit world, present and not present." He shook his head. "It is damned irritating at times; it simply defies truly systematic study, and the calculations are a nightmare. Hee-sik's calendar was the only one of the kind for precisely that reason, and she is considered quite a genius. She as good as handed victory to Seon when she completed it, though of course it was some time before they were able to make use of their knowledge. The dragon comes when it comes. But the effects of the spirit world are quite real—although I suppose you do not need to be assured of that, Avatar," he added, with a careful dip of the head in Katara's direction.

"No," Katara said, and he thought she nearly smiled. "No, that I already knew."

Dae Hyun hesitated. "I should tell you—it is possible the day will not come. It has been said that precisely this same understanding drove the Fire Lord Azulon to have all dragons eliminated, in the hopes that the celestial dragon would follow, and never weaken his people again. I could not tell you whether he succeeded."

The Avatar's face turned sober again. "But—but if he didn't," she said, "you'll be able to tell us when the next one is?"

The armillary room was the pride and joy of the observatory, and Dae Hyun had claimed the room beside it the moment he had been able. He glanced at the doorway, thinking of the hall beyond and the door one pace further down it, and considered. "The armillary room was constructed to model the movements of the stars and the sun," he admitted, "but of course they did not neglect to include a moon, and it should be accurate enough for your purposes. We must check against what records we have, for signs of the motions of the spirit world; and as I've said, it may not happen even if all the indications are there. But if the dragon still comes to swallow the sun, I believe it should be possible to determine when."

.*.*.*.

It wasn't the answer Katara had been hoping for—most of the answers she got tended to be like that, really, and probably she should get used to it. But it was a chance, and a chance was better than nothing.

The armillary room didn't seem all that impressive, to start with. It really was a room—a small gap from the doorway to a flat floor, and then nothing but walls, straight and flat, and twenty lanterns hanging almost all the way at the top, latticed together. There was a fat short column in the middle of the room, eras and days and months written in circles on plates around the top, and it was—Katara squinted at it. It was set for tomorrow, to start with.

"Ah, most excellent," Dae Hyun said. "Professor Kim must have been in, and left the lanterns lit."

"Yeah, they're—nice," Sokka said, expression skeptical.

Dae Hyun smiled at him knowingly, and didn't say anything. There was a lever beside the column, set into the floor; Dae Hyun grasped the end and pushed until there was a clunk, and then everything changed.

There was a reason for the gap between the door and the floor, Katara realized. A great round wall—there was no other word for it—rumbled up from one edge of the floor and over the curve of the room, like a long slow closing of a great eyelid; it blocked the door, blocked everything, and left them standing in blackness.

"Um," Sokka said.

Dae Hyun's laugh came out of the dark. "Give yourselves a moment," he said.

The lanterns had been pretty bright, and Katara's vision was covered in spots; but she blinked once, twice, again, and then Aang said, "Oh—oh, _wow_."

There were lights, Katara realized. Tiny lights, like needle-holes bored through a cloth, and there were—Katara blinked again, her eyes adjusting. There were ten thousand—a _hundred_ thousand, a perfect image of the night sky. Some were brighter, some were dimmer; they _were_ holes, holes in the stone dome Dae Hyun's lever had raised over them, and the light from the lanterns was shining through.

"When it was first built," Dae Hyun said, "there was no housing room, and it relied only on sunlight. Poetically appropriate, I suppose; but it was not much good on cloudy days—and quite uncomfortable to use during heavy rain."

There was another clunk, and the dome groaned into motion again—when it rotated away this time, there was another dome behind it, made of panes of thickly frosted glass that were a dulcet shade of blue, and Katara couldn't imagine how much work it must have taken to craft such a thing.

And there was a sun, hung above them on a metal band. A moon, too—there was a second band crossing the blue glass sky, and the moon was a pale painted circle about halfway along its length.

"Most excellent," Dae Hyun said, satisfied, and then leaned over the column and began to rotate the plates.

They didn't have to check every single day until the end of summer; if nothing else, Dae Hyun told them, the eclipse they hoped for could not fall except on a new moon. "And it cannot fall only in part," he said; "it must be full across the face."

One new moon, two, three; Katara waited through the clunks and the grinding of stone, keeping her eyes on the path of the moon. Every time it got close to the sun, she couldn't help holding her breath—but again and again it was too far away.

And then, at last, it wasn't. The sky swiveled, the bands rotated, and when Dae Hyun brought everything to a stop, the moon was precisely covering the sun, edge to edge. "Ah, perfect—nearly four months away," Dae Hyun said, and then set his hands to the plates again. "That is one possibility. It is likely there will not be another 'til the winter—"

"No!" Katara said. "No, this is—it's this one or nothing." Dae Hyun was looking at her with raised eyebrows; she'd gotten so used to pitting herself against the end of summer, she had almost forgotten he wouldn't know better than to keep going. "Please, just—check this one."

.*.

"Astonishing," Dae Hyun said.

Katara jerked against the table at the sound, and blinked her eyes open.

Dae Hyun had explained that it would take a dozen other things, records of stars and storms and other eclipses, and they had to be gone through one at a time. Katara hadn't known where he'd found the patience. She'd meant to pay attention, but the sound of his brushstrokes as he took notes was so soothing, and his office in the observatory building was really fairly comfortable.

At least, she thought, she hadn't drooled on the table. She couldn't quite see from this angle, but she doubted Sokka could say the same, given the way Suki was smirking down at him.

And then, at last, the word registered; and Katara flew out of her chair so fast she banged her knee. "Astonishing," she repeated. "Astonishing—is it really—"

Dae Hyun began to nod, still gazing down rapturously at the top sheet in front of him. "I believe it is," he said.

"A fascinating train of logic," said Professor Zei. He was still standing exactly where he had been when they started, reading over Dae Hyun's shoulder with a look of intense interest.

Dae Hyun lifted the top paper and laughed, more amazed than amused. "Imagine it," he said. "That you should come to me at such a time, seeking such a thing, and _find_ it. Truly, Avatar, the spirits are with you."

"So that's—that's it," Sokka said. He'd sat up at last, and was looking dazed; Katara couldn't be sure the expression on her own face was any different. A chance was better than nothing—it was still possible that nothing would happen, if Fire Lord Azulon really had managed to kill the celestial dragon, but if he hadn't—

Four months. It could all be over—the war, the Fire Nation, everything—in four months.

"We have to tell the king," Katara said.

Professor Zei and Dae Hyun had both been looking kind of dorkily pleased, which was fair enough; Katara was pretty sure it was Professor Zei's most cherished dream that the key to saving everything would be somewhere in a pile of paper. But now their faces both blanked out at once, and they glanced at each other a little uncertainly.

"What?" Sokka said.

Professor Zei cleared his throat. "Well, that is—that is somewhat more easily said than done, let us say. Access to the king of Ba Sing Se can be difficult to obtain."

"Difficult?" Katara said, but Professor Zei only waved a hand.

"Of course we will make the endeavor regardless," he said. "But you cannot see the king without permission; and you cannot receive permission unless you are able to enter the Upper Ring."

* * *

><p>Zuko pushed himself up from the last rough stair and onto the edge of the roof.<p>

At home, he could have blasted himself up—not well, perhaps, he had never had Azula's control. Or Azula's power, for that matter. He could have done it, though.

But he was not at home, and so he climbed the shallow stone stairs up the wall like any Earth peasant.

Not even any Earth peasant; some of them were benders, after all, and could have made the roof kneel down and pick them up, if they chose to. And Zuko was trapped among them, powerless, no more than a nonbender unless he wished instead to be a dead man.

A nonbender—that might have had Father disowning him from the very start. Would that have been a better course or a worse, to never have had a place at all? At the very least he would not then have been able to lose it through his own idiotic error—

Zuko held his breath for a moment, and then let it out slowly. This wasn't helping. He had come up here to get _away_ from irritations, from Jin's constant noise and Lan's wet eyes, Wan Liu's tired face. And Uncle, always Uncle—who never stopped watching, never stopped judging. At least Father's criteria had always been clear; Zuko had always known with certainty that he had failed, and by how much. Uncle gave him no such clarity. Uncle gave only riddles, useless riddles and long sober stares and—and tea. Zuko snorted.

There was a startled shush of sound as though in reply—cloth, Zuko thought, cloth against tile, and when he glanced over his shoulder at the low slope of the roof-corner, Qingying's face was peering over the edge. "Oh," she said, and then dipped her head a little awkwardly. "I'm—I'm sorry. I didn't hear you come up."

Was there nowhere he could get free of Wan Liu's wretched horde? Zuko made a noncommital sound and didn't let himself scowl.

He sat upon the roof with his back to Qingying, the sun low but rising between them; there had been a chilly rain in the night, perhaps even a little snow, and the air was still crisp. Wan Liu had called this a mild winter, but that made it only another way in which Zuko was not at home—a _mild_ winter, when there was still a sheen of ice glinting on the roof tiles? Zuko thought of the long wet storms that would be hanging over Da Su-Lien—with lightning, more often than not, and Azula had always dearly loved to drag Zuko up to the palace towers and watch him flinch—

Zuko scrubbed a hand through his hair. That wasn't helping either. Apparently there was nothing in his head this morning but dishonor.

"What are you doing up here?" he said aloud, before he could stop himself. Better conversation with an Earth peasant than his own thoughts. And he had told himself he could sink no lower.

He didn't turn around; it was easier that way, to pretend he wasn't mortifying himself. And Qingying's voice seemed to have come very far, when she answered—maybe she hadn't turned around, either.

"It's quiet," she said.

It wasn't, not exactly—the sun was barely up and people were already shouting in the streets, cart-wheels creaking and bells tinkling, stray pigeon cats squalling. But none of it was meant for _them_, Zuko thought; and so the roof did manage to feel somehow undisturbed.

But that wasn't quite an explanation. "And what do you need quiet for?" Zuko had a dozen reasons to feel out of place, even if you did not count the ones Qingying could never be permitted to learn; but that was Qingying's family shouting and crying and sighing down there. She had _lived_ with them, surely they could not irritate her for quite the same reasons they irritated him. She hadn't done them any dishonor that Zuko could see. What did she have to escape to the roof from?

There was silence from the other side of the roof, for so long that Zuko turned despite himself to peer around the nearer corner. Qingying was not looking back, but she had not moved away from the far corner; he could see the back of her head, the braid pinned at her neck.

"Sometimes I think you're lucky," she said at last, which was both not an answer at all and the most ludicrous thing Zuko had ever heard.

He meant to laugh once, sharply, to tell her how wrong she was, but once he started it was hard to stop. He managed to limit it to a couple extra chuckles, and then let his head drop forward to rest against his knee. "Do you," he said, and he filled the words with all the scorn he had to give.

"You work for the queen—that's what Aunt says." Qingying sighed behind him. "You work for the queen. And you must have fought the Fire Nation, to have your eye burned like that."

Zuko gritted his teeth and said nothing. That girl Song had thought the same thing—and why shouldn't she? Why shouldn't Qingying? He was an Earth peasant like them, as far as either of them knew, and if the scar helped them believe it, then he should let it be.

But Qingying—her tone when she talked about the queen, and about his eye—she thought it was a mark of honor. And that was so far from being the truth that Zuko was compounding his shame all over again, letting her think so and leaving it at that.

"I did not get it—well," he said. "I deserved it. I dishonored my father—it could not have gone unpunished."

There, he had said it, and all of it true—Father could not have done anything less, the failure had always been Zuko's. And yet the girl could draw any conclusion she liked. That he had done his family ill by cowardice, and thought the universe had marked him for it; that was not unreasonable. And surely she would never in a thousand years come up with the truth.

To his surprise, she laughed. "If only that were true," she said, and it was startling to hear her voice so bitter when her laugh had sounded quite normal. "If all punishments are so neatly handed out—what is Jin being punished for, then? Or Yanhong? What crime did my parents have to pay for?"

Zuko flattened his hands against the chilly roof tiles and swallowed. That wasn't—he hadn't meant—he knew there was not always justice. Uncle had failed in his siege of this very city, after all, even with all the weight of righteousness on his side; and Mother had turned on them, on Father, so cruelly that Father still hardly spoke of her. Father had deserved neither of those blows—and he had not deserved the burden of Zuko's shame. That was half the reason it was so important that Zuko not fail, that Zuko bring the Avatar as his father had asked and hand her over. _That_ would be justice.

And yet what were the odds that would ever happen? Zuko was trapped in the slums of an Earth city, working in a _tea shop_, and for all he knew the Avatar was safe behind fortress walls somewhere in Gungduan, or had returned to the north or the south. Qingying was not wrong: justice was very far away.

"I am sorry," Zuko said, and meant it, though he hadn't quite expected to.

"No, I—I am," Qingying said, and when Zuko peered over his shoulder this time he saw that she was rubbing her hands over her face, pushing her fingers into her hair beneath the knot of her braid. It was so like the way he scrubbed through his own hair when he was frustrated that he couldn't keep from snorting.

She turned her head at the sound and looked back at him, across the stretch of sunlit roof; and after a moment the corner of her mouth twitched. "So we are both sorry," she said. "That must make us even."

"Something like that," Zuko conceded. Not in the larger scheme of things—but here, in this moment, what larger scheme was there? He was trapped. Much as he had always fought to make it otherwise, he had no control, no power. In this instant, he was precisely as he appeared: a poor boy dressed in green, one of ten thousand refugees, who worked at a tea shop and fed a family that—that might as well have been his own.

There was a clunk from below, and a laugh that echoed up onto the roof; and Qingying smiled. "That must be your uncle," she said, and rose, flapping her hands at him as though he were an unruly pig chicken. "Quickly, Li, or you'll be late."

.*.

Zuko thought about the roof for half the morning; he couldn't help it. Had he—had he given up, then? Surely he could not so easily choose to let go of everything he wished for, everything he hoped to regain. Would that not be a greater cowardice than any other he had committed?

If he had been Azula, no doubt, he would have had all his revelations in a suitably legendary manner—on the lip of a volcano, in the middle of the heaviest rains, with lightning striking all around and a sharp smile on his face. But he was, as ever, himself; and he had a tray of empty cups in one hand and a tea-damp rag in the other when he stopped across the counter from Uncle and said, "What will I do?"

Uncle blinked, and eyed him uncertainly. "I would suggest you hand the cups back to Fei Yun," he said, "so that she may wash them."

Zuko ignored this inanity. "What will I do, if I cannot find the Avatar?"

"Ah," Uncle said, enlightened; he looked at Zuko for a long moment, and then something indefinable in his face went soft. "What you like, my nephew. Though I would still point you in the direction of Fei Yun, unless what you like is to be dismissed from employment."

"But if I—" The cups trembled upon the tray; Zuko set it down so that they would quit their rattling, and took a careful breath. "If I can't do this—how can I ever call myself my father's son again? What else is there?"

He could not quite believe the words had made it out of his mouth. Surely Father could tell somehow that he had said it, would _know_; surely lightning would crack open even a clear sky to strike him down for suggesting there could be any other path.

But, no, there was only Uncle, and if there were anything less like the striking of lightning than Uncle's gentle gaze, Zuko didn't know what it was.

"You have tried all your life to become someone you are not," Uncle said, "and you have never succeeded. Perhaps you should try being who you are, instead."

_Resign yourself to disgrace_—that was what Uncle's words truly meant, and Uncle had to know it. But then Zuko had told himself nearly the same thing, on that rooftop this morning. He looked down at the counter, and found himself reaching out to finger the delicate curving edge of a cup. "And who's that?" he said. It came out strange, cracked and too-serious; he scoffed to cover it.

But Uncle Iroh, as always, was unperturbed. "That is what I mean," Uncle said gently. "It is time you found out."

* * *

><p>Sokka was starting to think nobody lived in the Upper Ring at all <em>except<em> the king, because he couldn't see how anybody else ever managed to get past the gates.

"We don't want to _stay_ there," Katara said, "we just need to go in long enough to see—"

"It is not possible," said the fourth guy they'd talked to, which made it the fourth time they'd heard it.

The first guy had been a regular guard—really nice armor, very shiny, and he'd snapped out the first refusal and then gone and gotten the second guy when they wouldn't go away. The second guy had had even shinier armor. The third guy hadn't had armor, just robes, with a green circle in the middle that made Sokka think of General Fong's stone coins. And that guy had gone and gotten the fourth guy, who'd had even nicer robes and an even thinner, sterner face.

"Requests for entry to the Upper Ring must pass through the appropriate channels," the guy continued, his mouth all pinched and sour. "For the security of our king, and our city; to maintain order and tranquility. There is no other way."

Katara was staring at him like she couldn't understand what he was saying, or maybe more like she wished she couldn't—like if he were telling the truth, then she had absolutely no idea what to do next.

"Okay, fine," Sokka said loudly, and crossed his arms. "She's the Avatar. Does that help?"

"Sokka!" Katara said.

"What? It's not like it's going to be a secret now."

"Not anymore," Suki agreed in a murmur.

Sokka turned back to the fifth guy and pointed at Katara with both hands. "Avatar. Now can we come in?"

For just a second, the guy lost every cynical crunched-up thing about his expression; his eyes went wide, his jaw slack, like they'd finally told him something he didn't have a dozen responses memorized for. But then he yanked all that surprise back in like a fish on a spear, and said, "And why should we believe that?"

Katara's mouth flattened, and she glared at Sokka a little—but it wasn't like she couldn't prove it, now. She dutifully tugged a little pool of water out of her bending pouch and made it swirl around in a circle, and then shooed it back in and punched a loose corner up off a paving stone.

"Ha-_ha_," Sokka said, as Katara nudged the bit of rock back where it was supposed to go; but the fourth guy wasn't looking at him. He was looking at Katara, and he waved the third guy back over and murmured something to him that had the third guy hurrying away.

The fourth guy wouldn't say anything else except that they needed to wait, but it didn't take half as long as Sokka had secretly been expecting—maybe ten minutes, and a chunk of the Upper Ring wall clunked outward in a burst of Earthbending.

"I apologize," the fourth guy said, bowing. "I know you are not to be disturbed over trivial matters—"

"The Avatar is not a trivial matter," said the woman who'd come out of the wall, smiling. She was the fanciest person they'd seen yet, dressed in pale silk with dark panels at the neck and wrists, more of those Earth circles on her chest and her sleeves, and her hair done up with some complicated bar thing. Sokka barely even understood the stuff Katara did with her hair, this lady's was way beyond him.

And she was smiling, smiling—she looked incredibly pleasant, undemanding, but the fourth guy was still bowing and had started to back away.

The woman picked Katara out of the crowd of them like somebody had already told her who to look for, and bowed, hands tucked into her sleeves. "I am Joo Dee," she said. "Welcome to Ba Sing Se."

.*.

Joo Dee listened to the whole explanation over again, earnest and polite, and it was such a relief to talk to somebody who actually seemed like she was listening that Sokka couldn't help but relax. "I see," she said gravely, when Katara had demonstrated her Waterbending and Earthbending again, and then she smiled.

"So can we see the king?" Sokka said.

"I am but a humble servant of the Dai Li," Joo Dee said, "and I cannot alter procedure alone, even for the Avatar herself. But there are procedures and then there are procedures. I will see what can be done to hurry your application along."


	20. Calculations, Part 2

Even with Joo Dee's help, they were still going to have to wait. Katara offered to try to find another place, because she was Katara, but Professor Zei didn't even let her finish her first sentence.

"No, no," he said, "I wouldn't hear of it. Taoyi would never forgive me if I let you go without getting him his interviews. Please, do us the honor of remaining at the university while you wait."

Toph still thought he was kind of stuffy, but overall he wasn't a bad guy.

He led them over the university grounds to some buildings tucked away near the wall—students who came to study at the university from far away needed places to stay, and not all of them could afford the Middle Ring. "It simply would not do for a university student to stay in the Lower Ring," Zei said, and Toph could feel him shaking his head. "Would not do at all—but there are spaces to be had, and some of them quite comfortable."

And it was true. The room he took them to was large, enough beds for everybody and plenty of space besides, and the whole place was stone, which was perfect. Walls were stupid; but Toph could always get out, if they were stone.

She ignored everybody's exclamations for a minute to feel the place out a little more carefully—good foundations, no cracks or anything. When she started paying attention again, they were talking about that princess—or Katara was, passing on a question from Aang to Zei about what the city would probably do with her.

Which was bound to have a boring answer, but the subject stuck.

"I wonder why she wore that thing," Sokka said, surveying the bed he'd picked. "The hairpiece or whatever. If it means what Professor Zei said it meant. I mean, not very stealthy, is it?"

"He was the only one who knew she was the princess," Suki pointed out. "Maybe we'd have known if we were Fire Nation, but in the Earth Kingdoms most people probably don't know the difference."

"It would not have mattered, for us," Yue said. "We already knew."

Everybody went still at once, so that for just a moment there was nothing to feel except the tickling murmur of heartbeats; and then Katara's feet, Suki's, and Sokka's all shuffled against the floor as they turned around.

"We did?" Sokka said.

"We already knew," Yue repeated. Toph flattened her toes against the floor, spread them out; it didn't quite feel like Yue was _lying_, but her heartbeat was different, a little faster than anybody else's. "They mentioned it once, in Omashu—they told us her name."

"_Once_, seriously?" Sokka said. "I don't remember that."

"In passing," Yue said, and then hesitated. Her heart was still off. "I did not forget. But Professor Zei was not wrong; and I think the general at the wall would have liked his explanation better."

Sokka laughed at that, and Toph couldn't quite be sure but she would have bet Katara and Suki were smiling. And then they started going back to their packs—they really _couldn't_ feel it, could they?

Toph waited until they had all turned away, until Yue herself had leaned back over and set her pike against the wall, and then she took the four paces that got her around the end of the bed between them. "Why?" she said.

"... I'm sorry?"

"Why didn't you forget?" Toph said.

Yue's heartbeat had evened out, mostly, but she breathed in a little too sharply at the question. "I was reminded," she said. "I should not be surprised that they have forgotten—they did not see her."

"They didn't _see_ her?" Toph said. "What are you talking about?" She made a face. "Is she following you around like that dead kid we've got?"

Yue let out a startled laugh. "No, that's—I had a vision," she said. "We all did. There was a swamp, on the way to Gaoling, and we all saw things. Suki saw Kyoshi, and Katara—Katara saw you, actually."

Well, that was weird. A little creepy, sort of—but that wasn't the point. "And you saw Azula," Toph said.

"I saw my own fear," Yue said. "I think—I think Azula was the only person I could come up with who might be cruel enough to show it to me. To—taunt me with it. I would have known it for a vision the moment it began, otherwise. I would not have believed in its potential, not even for a moment; and that was not its purpose."

Toph scooched a foot closer, to feel a little better. "So you did believe it. Believe it—had happened, or whatever. The thing you're afraid of."

"I did," Yue said, and her voice was calm but her heart had picked up for just a second, remembering.

Toph thought about it. "What even are you afraid of?" she said.

Yue swallowed, and shifted her weight. "I suppose—that the moon is all that is best in me. That it has given me all that I have that is exceptional, my bending and my skill with it, and without that there is nothing else anyone would want with me."

Toph tried not to do it, she really did, but even all the face-scrunching she could manage couldn't stop the snort from escaping. "Are you serious?"

"... Yes," Yue said.

"But you're all—_dignified_ and—and princessy," Toph said. "You don't even have to work at it. I mean, my parents—they would have given anything to have somebody like you." She had a good handle on it, she wasn't going to _cry_ or anything stupid like that; but she still had to clear her throat before she could keep going. "I couldn't be like that. But I tried. I wanted to."

Yue was still for a moment, almost not there except Toph could feel the weight of her feet against the stone of the floor; and then Yue let out a breath, and sat back on the bed behind her. "_You_ wanted to be like me," she said. Her voice sounded like maybe she was smiling.

"For like a second," Toph said loudly, and sniffed. "Don't let it go to your head."

.*.*.*.

It was _weird_, to go through all their things. They hadn't really had a place where they'd needed to settle in since they'd left Kanjusuk; and with all the hurry, they wouldn't have taken the time anyway.

It had never seemed like all that much when Katara was carrying it, but when she spread everything out across her bed she couldn't imagine how it had fit in her pack.

Half of it wasn't even anything they'd started out with. They still had Gran-Gran's map, but of course it had been joined by the one they'd bought in that Fire Nation village the day of the festival—the day with the masks, the day Katara had fixed Sokka's burned arm. It wasn't as ugly a memory as Katara had expected; she would have given anything for Sokka to never have been hurt at all, but next best was being able to _fix_ it. Despite all her hopes, there didn't actually seem to be a whole lot of things she could fix just by trying for a minute; but Sokka's arm had been one.

And the Waterbending scroll—she needed it less now, and maybe she should have gotten rid of it for the sake of space, but she didn't think she ever would. Tucked around it were the blueprints—the papers from Shu Sen, the ones Dai Kun had given them before he'd waved them off in their new boat as they sailed for the north. The water Yue's mother had given her was still tied to the pack, too, in its little pointed jar.

"You've gone an awfully long way," Aang murmured. He was hovering over the bed, kneeling—well, not on it, but very close, and reaching out over everything like he might have touched it if he had been able to.

Katara looked down at it all, and couldn't argue. There was a time when she never thought she'd go much further than the hunting routes across the ice fields, or the water between the floes where everybody went to fish. And then Father had left, and her idea of distance had changed: the sea wasn't the edge anymore, it was something to be crossed, when at last she could Waterbend well enough to join Father and the fleet. And then—and then Sokka had gotten himself hit on the head, she thought wryly, and everything had changed.

And now they were waiting to see the king of Ba Sing Se, to tell him that a spirit dragon might swallow the sun and give them everything they needed.

"I'm not done yet," Katara said.

* * *

><p>They had taken the train into the city only so far; the Earth soldier had explained to them that it would be far easier for them to go unnoticed in what he called the Lower Ring. In gratitude, Azula had not shoved him onto the tracks. It would not, in the end, make them any safer if they killed him—when they failed to arrive where they had been sent, there would be inquiries whether the soldier was there for them or not. So there was nothing to be gained by it; and he had, after all, been useful.<p>

Azula left him on the train with a freshly-blistered cheek and instructions to wait until the next station to disembark. And either he followed those instructions or the city guard of Ba Sing Se was slower than Azula could ever have dreamed, for no alarm was raised—or not until long after they had left the station, at least.

And the soldier had been right: the Lower Ring was perfect. No effort had to be made to move with the crowd, to blend in or become indistinguishable; there was no other option. The people moved in hordes, a great crush along the narrow streets, and faces flashed by ten at a time, so many that any difference between them blurred away. Azula had to admire the practicality of it—it wasn't _elegant_, walling all the peasants up together to keep them out of the way, but it evidently worked well.

There were lines of laundry over some of the back alleys and rooftops; ten seconds and a few acrobatics from Ty Lee, and they could abandon their green cloaks without giving themselves away. Mai and Samnang made perfect street performers, Samnang still as stone as Mai hurled knives at a board propped up behind him, and Ty Lee could coax a coin from anyone with her smile and her big brown eyes.

And Azula watched.

They chose a spot not far from a gate, near another train station. The guards who paced along it were highly regimented; they changed on a tightly controlled schedule, no obvious gaps or flaws. But Azula suspected they would be much like the soldiers at the outer wall—unused to change, unprepared for a sudden sharp strike. Like the stone they bent—strong, solid, but no flexibility.

But the city guard was not alone. Robed men in round hats came by the gates, and they had no schedule that Azula could easily discern, though true randomness was unlikely. They had stern faces and long dark braids, and though they had no visible armor they walked with the confidence of men who knew no one around them could stand against them. The guards were unfailingly deferent, and even people who passed near them in the street bowed now and again.

Important men, then, and powerful—Azula's plans could not fail to account for them, whoever they were. She would not fail like Uncle Iroh; she would take Ba Sing Se with both strength and precision, and leave nothing to chance.

Ty Lee and Mai surely had some inkling that she meant to take the city, she had as good as said it out loud. Of course, they did not fully understand what she meant to do after; and if Samnang had guessed, he did not seem to have shared his thoughts. Azula had made no effort to elaborate, and that was for the best. Ty Lee and Mai would help her find Zuko and Uncle, once the city was secure, and in return Azula would be kind, would not force them to choose. Betrayal of Azula on one hand, death on the other—Azula could not expect them to make that choice wisely.

Azula had taught herself to separate feeling from result, by slow painstaking degrees; but not everyone had the same skill. Ty Lee had always been fond of Iroh, and Mai had once displayed a distressing tendency to find Zuko's idiocy more endearing than revolting. Their vision would be clouded—they would not see Father or honor or the Fire Nation, only old affection, and that would make execution unpalatable to them both.

Unkind, to pit friendship against such things; and yet Father's orders must be followed. So Azula would be kind.

The sun had begun to sink below the wall, by the time the day's last group of round-hatted men had nodded stiff approval to the guards and gone on their way. It was a challenge to descend from the rooftop where she had perched without Firebending, without even a small blast of fire here and there to cushion or correct her angle; but Azula loved a challenge.

When she reached the street, Samnang was helping Mai collect her knives from the board, and Ty Lee was—Ty Lee was beaming, because she was Ty Lee, and in the pouch she'd made with the hem of her shirt she had a whole jangling mess of Earth Kingdom coins. "Look!" she said, and held them out.

"Extraordinary," Azula drawled. "I'll have no need of the royal treasury now."

Zuko would have thought it an insult—and if she had said it to him, it would have been one—but Ty Lee only laughed, and then stuck out her tongue. "You should have seen them," she said, "they were wonderful."

"Yes," Mai said flatly, "performing on the street for spare change was always a dream of mine."

It had been a good day, and Azula was pleased; she let her mouth quirk a little. "We'll have greater things to dream of," she said.

"But not today, I'm guessing," Ty Lee said brightly. "So! What's for dinner?"

* * *

><p>It was not precisely Joo Dee's intention to delay her return to the offices of the Ministry for Cultural Authority; but nevertheless she found herself meandering, taking a route that led through the sculpted gardens of the Upper Ring in a long rounded arc.<p>

Public, she thought, was not the right word for the gardens—public implied casual use, by anyone who happened to pass. An invitation to disorder! No, the gardens were only for those who lived their lives in the Upper Ring, those who could by definition be trusted to act rightly, with caution and respect. Minor officials sent to report from the Middle Ring knew their places, and hurried past without pausing; but Joo Dee could slow, could pass the gate and enter.

There were pavilions here and there—works of art, Joo Dee thought, that would have been vandalized in a moment in the Lower Ring. A moment's walk brought her to the nearest, and she seated herself and looked out: bare branches everywhere, Spring Festival was not for several days yet and the leaves would not come for some time after, but the naked trees alone had a certain angular beauty.

The Avatar, in Ba Sing Se. Joo Dee had no need to lie, not to herself; her heart had leapt for a moment to hear it.

But she had remembered herself, had shown restraint. Time had shown that the Avatar could not always be trusted. The Dai Li were sanctified, their mission handed to them by Kyoshi herself—Kyoshi whom the spirits had granted exceptional long life, whose honor could not be impugned. But when her two hundred and thirty years had come to an end, she had left them with another. It would not be right for Joo Dee to pass judgment upon the Avatar; but Roku had lived and died in fire and darkness, had let Sozin take half the western coast—had even _helped_ him, some now said. And then the war had come. The war had come, and the Avatar had not, not for a hundred years.

The Dai Li had not faltered, even without guidance. If anything, they had become stronger in their purpose, honed like a blade, and even without an Avatar they had turned back the Fire Nation when the time had come. Oh, the siege had been terrible, long and terrible, but they had prevailed. They had prepared themselves, composed their strategies—no doubt the Lower and Middle Rings had suffered, but the Upper Ring had been the city's highest priority, and, in the end, the city's salvation. They had had a scheme laid out for every ranking officer, and had been ready to risk agents on Dragon of the West himself; but it had been Joo Dee's own target whose death had brought the end at last, and, oh, that had been a glorious day indeed. Her exalted position now was in part the result of that fine work.

The Dai Li had preserved the city, and the kingdom with it, and proven that they had not been corrupted. Betrayal, greed, liberality, war—all these had come up against the Dai Li, in the years since Kyoshi, and all had been defeated.

And now the Avatar returned. A Waterbender—that, Joo Dee would not have been surprised by; and Joo Dee herself could flick a wrist and lift half a paving stone, but both skills together, in one girl—the Avatar.

And she wished to see the king. But for what purpose—that was the question. If she meant simply to make herself known to the king of Ba Chang, that was not unreasonable; but if she meant to drag them back into war, that could not be countenanced. Ba Sing Se must be preserved. The other Earth kingdoms could do as they pleased, but Ba Chang had won all that needed winning seven years ago, had earned peace. There was no war, in Ba Sing Se—and there would not be one, Avatar or no Avatar.

But either way, Long Feng had best be told. Joo Dee stood, smoothing her skirt. Kings were well and good, but in the end, no more inherently trustworthy than the Avatar. The Dai Li understood necessities: if it were best that the Avatar never reach the throne room, Long Feng would see it done. Ba Sing Se would fall to nothing—not to the Avatar, not to war; not even to its own king.

.*.

The halls of the Ministry were never still; there was always something to be done, and always someone in the midst of doing it. Joo Dee passed a line of agents likely headed for the Middle Ring, and exchanged bows with another woman—another Joo Dee, in truth. Names were of no use to the Dai Li, except the exceptionally ranked like Long Feng who chose their own; Joo Dee had no doubt had another as an infant, but she could not remember it. Every female agent wore the same gown, dressed her hair alike, and went by Joo Dee. They were each of them only one small part of a whole—to deal with one agent of the Dai Li was to deal with all the Dai Li, and in this way no one could forget it. Not even the Dai Li themselves.

But there remained some small ways for even the less acquainted to tell each other apart. When Joo Dee came to the grand tall door of Long Feng's office chamber, the guard's eyes went immediately to the stitching of her sleeves. The circled squares there were outlined in deep green and then a second, paler shade with three wider sets of stitches, which marked her as senior third rank; so he bowed and let her in, instead of demanding to know her business.

Long Feng was standing by the mantel, looking down impassively at a sheaf of pages in his hands—a report, no doubt, but no matter what it was it could not be half as important as the news of the Avatar. He looked up at the sound of her steps, and unlike the guard he knew her face.

"You know better than to interrupt me over unimportant matters," he said.

"I do," Joo Dee agreed, bowing low.

"Then you have a matter of importance." Long Feng set his papers down and gave her his full attention.

"I do," Joo Dee said again. She hesitated for a moment—foolishly, because she had just said it was important, and because she had already delayed far longer than she should have. And yet it _was_ important, so much so that she was hard-pressed for a way to say it well. Well then, she thought, she would settle for saying it poorly. "The greatest importance—the Avatar has returned."

"So it is rumored," Long Feng said slowly, watching her with a steady gaze.

"Forgive me, I have been unclear," Joo Dee said. "The Avatar has returned, and come to Ba Sing Se; and she stood before me in the street and asked to see the king."

Long Feng was still for a long moment, and then he looked away from her at last with narrowed eyes. "Well," he said. "A matter of importance indeed."

* * *

><p>Zuko served tea and served tea and served tea, and for once he could not muster any hatred for it; he could not muster any feeling at all, except something uncomfortably like uncertainty.<p>

_It is time you found out_, Uncle said, as though it were so simple—_found out_, as though it were a secret someone held, and if Zuko only found the right person, cornered them in the warren of Ba Sing Se and asked, they would tell him the answer.

But it was not so. No one knew—no one _cared_. No one in this tea shop had any thought for Zuko except whether he would bring them another fine hot cup or spill it on their heads, aside from Uncle.

It should have hurt to think it. It should have been the final, terrible blow to whatever limping pride he still had left. But perhaps he had none; for all he felt was an odd hollow lightness, a sort of relief.

No one cared. It did not matter. No one was looking, no one was judging—except for Uncle, perhaps, but Zuko had never understood what Uncle wanted from him and was unlikely to start now. Zuko was only another face among thousands; not even the only one with a scar, now that the Lower Ring was choked with refugees from the front.

Expectations had surrounded him all his life, in the Fire Nation—eyes on him at all times; his every action examined by Father and his advisers, Azula and her friends. For all her later crimes, Mother had loved him, had never been truly disappointed by even his worst failures; and how ill had it spoken of him, that someone like Mother had felt that way? Loved best by a traitor. Perhaps Mother really had wanted him on the throne—for a puppet, or to push aside any time she liked, secure in the knowledge that he could never have stopped her the way Azula would have. Perhaps that was what Mother's favor had meant all along.

But: it did not matter. Here, he was—he was a blank page, a brush poised overhead but no ink yet fallen on the sheet. He had been marked at home, blotted, unable to forget or leave behind what everyone around him knew. But here he was unknown, and could be anyone he wanted. He could—be himself.

Whoever that was.

.*.

He was sent out in the midafternoon—a carpenter not far from the tea shop had been tasked with repairing a table with a wobbling leg. The tea shop owner was a narrow, nervous man who liked to think of the shop as a fine little establishment; a wobbling table did not suit, and he was eager to have it fixed.

Zuko wasn't sure what drew his eye to the uneven little block of wood in the corner, nor why he picked it up; but the carpenter turned from the table and caught him with it in his hand.

She was a heavyset, smiling woman, and she grinned still wider and took an unsettling step toward him. Zuko tensed—what did she mean to do to him?—but she only punched him companionably in the shoulder. "A toy," she said, and then laughed. "Or half of one—the man never came for it, in the end, and I can't work on things I won't be paid for. But here, you see, it was almost done." She took it from him and turned it over, and now Zuko could indeed recognize the general shape, though the finer details were not there.

He looked back at the carpenter; she was watching him, with the same thoughtful crease in her brow that Uncle got just before he said something cryptic and unhelpful.

"You may have it, if you like," she said. "It's no use to me."

He meant to say no, he did, but the carpenter turned away before he could so much as move, and spent a quarter-hour sanding down the edges. And after that, it would have been—it would have been rude not to take it. A day ago, he would have refused it anyway; but he was—

He was someone new today.

"Tell Pao kind things about me," the carpenter ordered him with a chuckle, and tossed him the half-shaped toy. "I haven't started—don't tell him that—but the table is a small job. If he sends you back tomorrow, I'll have it ready."

Zuko did not know what to say, so he said nothing. He bowed, and left the carpenter's workshop with his fingers wrapped tight around the little chunk of wood.

.*.

He thought a dozen times that he should toss it away, let it fall to the street and leave it there, but somehow he never quite let go; and when he returned to the shop he still had it in his hands.

Uncle said nothing, but whether that was because he was restraining himself or because he did not see, Zuko was not sure. There was something of a rush to be had in the late afternoon, at the hour when there was a chance to sit and drink and exchange the day's gossip before the streets of the Lower Ring grew dangerous in the evening; and Uncle was busy behind the counter, brewing. Zuko shoved the toy into his belt so he could take full trays of tea with both hands, and by the end of the day he had half forgotten it.

But it did not fall into the street on their way from the shop. It was not knocked from Zuko's hip by the crush of people, nor stolen by a street child mistaking it for a thing of value. And so it was still tucked there when Jin yanked on the leg of Zuko's trousers and said, "What's that?"

Zuko hesitated. No one was looking at him but Jin, and this choice need not define him; he could choose never to do anything like it again, if he wished. He had never done anything like it before—but that was the point.

"An Earth train," he said curtly, and tossed it down.

In an unusual display of coordination, Jin managed to catch it before it could hit the floor, and began to inspect it closely. It genuinely was the right shape, long straight lines and angled roof, and the little rows of windows were marked out along the sides, though the carpenter had not yet put any detail into the sills or roof tiles.

"It _is_ an Earth train," Jin said, turning it over, as though Zuko might have lied about something so stupid; and then he lowered the wooden train car to the floor with a sound like a building falling in, and promptly rammed it into Zuko's toes.

* * *

><p>They'd managed to settle into something of a routine, such that by the time Mizan had boarded the lead ship and come to the bridge, Isani already had the captain tied to his—it was a man, this time—own chair. He'd given her something of a fight, her nose had been bloodied; but Isani seemed not the least bit disturbed by the injury, smiling genially down at the man through the drying mess on her mouth and chin.<p>

"Charming," Mizan told her.

"Thank you, sir," Isani said. "If he wished to have someone more pleasant to look at, he should not have hit me in the face."

She made this exceptionally fair point with another calculated smile down at the man, a bit of stray blood pinking her teeth.

"I imagine he's reconsidering his choices even as we speak," Mizan said.

This was not a cargo convoy; they'd caught two of those so far, and a pair of off-duty patrol ships, but this was their first communications squadron. Messenger hawks could be lost, caught in storms, shot down. Sometimes you needed people to do the sensitive work—people, and a few fast ships to carry them.

The captain was carefully trained, as a consequence—neither belligerent nor blustering. He sat quietly where he was bound and watched them, and if Isani's bloody smile rattled him, he wasn't showing it. But then Mizan wouldn't have expected him to.

He wasn't the only crew member they'd caught in the bridge. One of the Earth pirates had the woman who was second-in-command pinned up against the wall with her hands tied; and Mizan had had to step over two others on the deck just outside to get into the bridge.

There were papers everywhere, but Mizan spared them only a glance. They'd be in code, no doubt—impossible to read without a key, hours of trial and error, or intimate knowledge of which words to heed and which to ignore. But no matter. Mizan didn't need them.

The cargo convoys and patrol ships had provided the beginnings of a pattern. Mizan did not need deep secrets, here, only confirmation of the things she already knew.

"Judging by your charts," she said to the captain, "you were headed to Jindao."

He looked at her steadily and said nothing.

Mizan dropped into an easy crouch, elbows on her knees, and clasped her hands in front of her. From here, she could look the man in the eye. "Carrying essential orders, no doubt—fine fast ships like these. They've been maintaining that blockade for years under internal command. And yet here you are, with orders from outside. Intriguing."

If the captain had a tell, Mizan had no idea what it was. He blinked neither quickly nor slowly, swallowed without obvious anxiety; he glanced back and forth between Mizan and Isani in no particular pattern.

"And what might they be told to do?" Mizan mused aloud. "Not continue as they are; that would require no deviation from routine. To change, then—to do something else, go somewhere else. That is what orders are for. And after such a long time—surely such orders would come only for the most important of reasons. For an operation of great magnitude."

The captain's gaze remained unaltered.

"And what target might demand an operation of such size?" Mizan adopted a thoughtful expression. "What would the Fire Lord consider worth such an effort? Surely this degree of care is worthy only of the great city itself."

In the Earth Kingdoms, only one thing was ever meant by _the great city_. The captain was good, he did not so much as twitch; but behind him, his second tensed against the wall, and looked at Mizan with sudden sharpness.

So that was the answer, just as Mizan had expected. She tilted back onto her heels for a long moment, and then levered herself to her feet. "Outside," she said, with a nod to Isani, and then she turned and left the bridge.

.*.

"Two a coincidence, three a pattern," Isani said. "What does that make four?"

Mizan smiled out at the water, and shook her head. "A plan," she said.

There was no mistaking it. A massive advance was headed for Ba Sing Se. And it could not only be warships—Ba Sing Se was not so close to the sea as that. Incredible as it sounded, the fleets had to be the lesser portion of the threat, the vast battleships in the end less dangerous than the troops and equipment they had to be carrying. Nothing else made sense.

"They would not go north," Mizan said aloud. "Nor come from the east. Neither is a convenient route, when they hold the bay and the South Yellow Sea."

"The river, then," Isani said. "They wish to hold the sea, the coasts, and the river—they will not let themselves be taken by surprise if another kingdom should think to rush to Ba Sing Se's defense."

"Ba Chang's defense," Mizan said. "What will be left of the kingdom, without the city?"

Isani conceded the point with a dip of her head, and then a thought came to her, visibly blooming across her face. "But if they are so committed," she said, "what will they leave behind?"

Mizan turned to look at her.

"They will send their ships up the river, they will hold the coasts and the southern sea; they will let no one by to reinforce the city. Very well. But when they have walled off every avenue of attack, have they not also walled themselves in?"

"If they leave the bay," Mizan murmured. She went still for a moment, turning the thought over. Even if the Fire Nation did not abandon the bay entirely, they were giving all they could to the assault of Ba Sing Se—what _would_ they leave behind? What could they spare, to hold the bay behind them?

And what good would it do them in the end to have the river and the sea, if they could not get out again after?

It was painfully tempting, and Isani knew it. "We do not have the ships for it," she said, but she was watching Mizan's face with a sharp light in her eyes, waiting for Mizan to prove her wrong.

"We will never have the ships for it," Mizan said. "If we are waiting for the day we will match the Fire Lord in numbers, we will wait forever. And there will never be a better chance." If they _could_ take the bay—what a bottleneck the river's mouth would make! Even a few ships could hold there, if they had no need to worry over an attack from behind.

If, if, if—an unpleasant word, in wartime. Unless—

Unless they were not alone.

"That expression is not unlike the one you had when you first decided it was a good idea to join up with pirates," Isani said.

"And look how well that's going," Mizan said, bright.

.*.

Tan Khai was waiting on the dock for them—it was her habit, or becoming so, as though she thought every time might be the time Mizan would turn on the rest of the fleet and send them limping back to Dou Ying without her. Perhaps it was unkind; but Mizan did so love to disappoint her.

She had her arms crossed before her as Mizan came down the ramp from the ship, and watched Mizan's progress with a baleful sort of stare.

"It fills my heart with gladness," Mizan called down to her, "that you do not rest until I am safely returned."

"If you die," Tan Khai replied, "I would like to be the first to know." She paused a moment, and then uncrossed her arms, a tacit sign for truce. "The news?"

"The same," Mizan said. "Ba Sing Se, again. Not the ships we struck themselves, but they bore messages for others."

Tan Khai huffed out a frustrated little sigh. "To think," she said, "that we should come to know so much while we can yet do so little. To have knowledge that cannot be used—"

"Cannot be used alone," said Mizan.

Tan Khai's gaze snapped back to Mizan in a suddenly wary stare. "Alone," she repeated. "And who would you have join us?" Her eyes sharpened. "If you think to lead us into a trap—to goad us out where your own fleets can fall upon us like—like vulture hawks—"

"I tell you," Mizan said, "they would fall upon me as readily. They are not my fleets; _this_ is my fleet, and if it should come to a bad end I will drown as quickly as you will."

Tan Khai's mouth twisted, but she said nothing.

"This is my fleet," Mizan said again, "but I am not the commander. I will not tell you what to do."

Tan Khai stared at her for a moment, and then pursed her lips. "Oh, no," she said. "Never. You will simply make every option before us look foolish or nonsensical or cowardly, except the one you desire us to follow, and then you will sit back and ask us sincerely which course we intend to take."

"And the choice will be yours," Mizan said, all innocence. She paused for a moment; she should not make light, not when she truly did want Tan Khai to listen. "I remember what was said when I came here—how you longed to make a difference. That is all I wish to do, and I think perhaps we will be able to."

"Well, as long as _you_ think so," Tan Khai said, with grim distaste, but then she sighed. "If we were truly to lose Ba Sing Se—I should not like to think of it."

Mizan didn't like to, either. She had begun this peculiar alliance cast off, set loose, with the vague thought that perhaps she might divert a little attention from General Iroh and the prince; but surely they were either captured or long gone by now, and yet. She was no hero, but then the pirates weren't either—they simply could not bear not to act, when they knew what might happen otherwise. That was a perspective Mizan could understand. She had no doubt been marked for death the moment she had fired on Princess Azula's ship, and there was nothing to be done about it now. If she were to be executed for a traitor, best she earn the title.

* * *

><p>The Tai San was long and winding, and not always as deep as might be hoped when one had a fleet of battleships to maneuver up its length. Much was said of the Dragon of the West and the siege he had so nearly completed; but Yin suspected that General Iroh's greater accomplishment had been holding the Tai San long enough for a dozen locks and dams to be built.<p>

It was said that ancient kings of Ba Sing Se had once employed hundreds of Waterbenders to accomplish much the same sort of feat. And no doubt it was also said that it spoke to the genius of the Fire Nation, that they had no need of such assistance—that even without Waterbenders, they could master the river. But Yin, looking out over the rail, could not help wondering what it must have been like.

Hundreds of Waterbenders. Perhaps there were still as many somewhere amidst the northern ice fields, scattered; but all in one place, traveling freely in the Earth Kingdoms! Unthinkable, today. Yin could only imagine the feats they must have been capable of. Waterbenders were not all the Avatar, waking the spirit of the ocean and capsizing battleships—and yet how invaluable they must have been in the face of floods or tidal waves, great storms or droughts. Strange, to think they might never be seen in such numbers again.

But then they were not alone in that. Yin remembered every lesson of her childhood in the dangers posed by the Air Nomads—so great that the spirits had gifted the Fire Lord with a comet, a blessing of power with which to wipe them from the face of the world. And yet surely they too had performed great wonders, in old times. Surely they had done works of great beauty.

The lock was very large, the changes in water level almost undetectable; but the great pumps were not subtle instruments, and Yin could hear it when they stopped. And evidently Kishen could also, for it was barely a moment before the hatch to the bridge clanged open.

"Nearly time, sir," Kishen said.

"Yes," Yin said.

The battalions assigned as lock-keepers had moved quickly for them. The whole fleet could not fit in each lock at once, but they were being shuffled through as rapidly as possible. There were two lanes of locks along the Tai San, one for those headed upstream and one for those headed down; but both lanes had been turned over to Yin's ships for the sake of speediness.

And, Yin thought, for the sake of the cargo they carried. War machines, the like of which Yin had never seen before—no wonder a war minister himself had been involved. The princess Azula did indeed have a plan, and it was one Yin suspected she was not going to like.

"The Tai San is a long river," Kishen said.

Yin glanced over her shoulder at him; he looked back with studious blankness.

"Even after we are through the locks," he added. "I expect it will take us some time."

"The Fire Lord has equipped us well," Yin said. "These are fine, fast ships."

_Not that much time_, she meant, and she knew Kishen was clever enough to understand.

Why was she even feeling this discomfort, this—foreboding? Perhaps, she thought, she was simply out of the habit of following orders, such that obeying without question felt like a misstep in and of itself. And yet there was no reason for it.

There had been clear gain in the north, with the life of the moon in the balance and Zhao's faults overwhelming, and a clear course to take. And it had been a lesser risk in many ways, murdering Zhao behind walls of ice when half the people nearby had turned out to have reason to like her for it. There was no choice to be made here, no principle at stake—she could save nothing, gain nothing, through even the most egregiously public disobedience. She was only the ferrywoman, and with any luck it would stay that way.

"And little is demanded of us," she added. "We have no reason not to perform most excellently."

"Indeed, sir," Kishen said, ducking his head. "Though surely they will not put us to waste."

Yin turned to look at him again.

"When we have come to the shores of the South Yellow Sea," Kishen said. "A fleet of the Fire Lord's mighty battleships—surely they will not put us to waste."

His tone was mild, even light, but his gaze was fixed on her face; he knew what he was saying, what it meant.

"No," Yin said. "I suppose they won't."

It had now been some time since the pumps had stopped, but the lock gates were not opening. Some small delay, Yin thought, and then a loop of fire rose above the gates.

"Looks like someone has a question for you, sir," Kishen said.

.*.

There was another ship, as it turned out. Only one, a smaller vessel, and by all reports a bit damaged. Not one of Yin's, but likely a scout or a patrol ship from Chameleon Bay.

The battalions holding the locks had two-person water-sledges to ferry them back and forth between ships; one came to carry Yin to the gate so that she could see the ship for herself.

It was a dented little thing, and clearly did not have a full complement aboard. But the woman nearest the bow had a reasonably sharp salute, and when she shouted up to the gate, she didn't sound tired or dispirited. "Apologies for causing you a delay, sir!"

Yin waved that away with an expansive motion of the arm, large enough for the woman to see. "No matter," she called back down. "You have business upriver?"

The woman shrugged one shoulder. "Reports," she said. "Messages, requisitions—nothing out of the ordinary. Of course we would be only too happy to wait until your fleet has passed; but—"

_But why should we?_ It was a reasonable enough request; it wasn't as if one more ship would slow them down, not when they were already taking up both lanes of the river. And, truth be told, it was a relief to be confronted with a decision so simple, no great weight resting on her choice.

Yin turned to the officer who had escorted her. "They're one of mine," she said, "or close enough; I'll take responsibility for them from here. Let them come through with the third squadron, if you would."

.*.*.*.

"Well," Mikama said, "that was quite the stroke of luck."

Ukara's expression went sour. Sour-er. "Luck," she said, with a tone in her voice like she was talking about something that tasted unpleasant.

Mikama tried not to smile too much. Ukara hated anything that meant you were not getting things done yourself, with your own brain or your own hard work. Which Mikama could understand, a little—if you _relied_ on luck, if you waited for it to do everything, sooner or later it would slide out from under you like summer-soft ice.

Sometimes, though, you had to have a little plain old good fortune; you could not plan for everything. And there was no way they would have gotten through this without _some_ luck on their side.

They'd picked just the right fleet to follow, or maybe just the right day to do it—maybe the commander had happened to be in a good mood, the battalion running the gates less demanding than they should have been. Whatever the reason, they'd made it through, and now they were—well. Walled into an enclosed area with dozens of Fire Nation battleships, but that was, peculiarly, where they'd hoped to end up.

Hakoda eased off when they were safely inside the lock, and then he shuffled away from the windows in the bridge and yanked his helmet off. "Luck aside," he said, "that was well done."

Mikama accepted the compliment with a nod. She had been anxious beforehand, just a little—she was good at talking, as Ukara liked to complain to anyone who would listen, but this hadn't been a little evening storytelling over the cooking pit. For a moment, there had been lives in her hands that she wouldn't have been able to save if things had gone wrong, wouldn't have been able to bring back the next night with a new story.

She glanced at Ukara next, she could not help it, and Ukara pursed her lips. "We haven't died yet," she conceded, which was one of the kindest sentences Mikama had ever gotten out of her.

But if Mikama said so, she'd never hear anything like it again; so she didn't. "I do make an excellent Fire Nation officer," she said instead, and made a show of looking herself over.

And the Fire Nation armor really was well-made. Heavier than anything Mikama was used to fighting in, much stiffer than furs or cloth, but she could manage more flexibility than she'd expected. The helmets, though, she did not like. It was already far too hot in the north, even in what they seemed to think was winter—why make it worse with a pot over your head?

Ukara rolled her eyes and shoved the hatch open with a clang, and Mikama followed her out to look back across the water. They were well into the lock, now, and the last of the squadron they'd come in with was through the gate—the gate was grinding shut as they watched, and a moment after it thudded into place, someone shouted, and the great pumps began to churn.

"Not long now," Ukara said.

"All that remains is to hope they notice nothing until we reach the river's end," Mikama said.

"Hope," Ukara said, with exactly the same tone she'd used to say _luck_; and they stood on the deck and watched the water rise against the gate, a ripple at a time.

* * *

><p>"I say we should just go find the palace and break the door down," Sokka said.<p>

"I'm sure that would go over well," Katara said, rolling her eyes. "Nothing could ever convince the king to trust us quite as neatly as an assault."

She was on the second-highest step of the anthropology building, leaning back against the top one; she could not see Yue's face, so Yue let the corner of her mouth curl the way it wanted to.

"I just hate _waiting_," Sokka groaned.

Yue turned far enough to see over her shoulder: Suki was leaning toward him, the picture of sympathy, and patted him twice on the arm.

"Won't have to for much longer," Toph said from the bottom stair.

Yue glanced at Suki, who looked back blankly. "What?" Suki said.

"That lady," Toph said, "from the wall. She's here. She walks all—light, glidey. Sort of like my mother." Toph sniffed and cleared her throat. "You've got to be able to see her, she can't be _that_ far away."

And she wasn't—Toph raised one arm to point unseeingly in the general direction of the university gates, a student moved out of the way, and there was Joo Dee. She looked exactly the same as she had coming out of the wall of the Upper Ring, with the same gown and the same courteous smile; Yue had not thought of it before, but no doubt her fine robes were as much a uniform as any armor.

"Avatar," Joo Dee said, and bowed deeply to Katara. "I am sorry for the delay—and I fear it is only the first of many. You must understand, the king has so many—"

"—demands on his time, yeah, we know," Sokka said.

Katara flicked his shoulder scoldingly. "It's not _her_ fault," she said, and then turned to Joo Dee. "I do understand—thank you for trying."

"That is not all I have tried," Joo Dee said, with a small smile. "I cannot get you to the king, not yet. But I am employed by the Dai Li—the Ministry of Cultural Authority, the office responsible for preserving tradition and order in Ba Sing Se. Of course I am not worthy of the honor, but it is no small posting. I have spoken with the Grand Secretary himself, and he has agreed to speak with you this afternoon. If he thinks you have good cause to seek audience with the king, he will do his utmost to help you."

.*.

The Upper Ring was strangely quiet, after the bustle of the university, and Yue found it faintly unnerving. Everything in the Upper Ring was so—sculpted. At home, when Yue grew tired of neat corners and perfect arches, the wild ice was never far away; but there were no jagged cliffs or rough edges here. The wheels of Joo Dee's carriage turned so smoothly it barely felt like they were moving at all.

Yue had not been certain what to expect—"no small posting" could cover a considerable amount of ground, and of course "Grand Secretary" sounded quite impressive, but "Cultural Authority" did not seem like the name of a ministry that called for vast offices. And yet when they drew to a stop, it was by the steps of a towering building that would not have been out of place on the university grounds.

"This is the place," Joo Dee said brightly, and smiled.

She waved them all out ahead of her, and closed the carriage door behind her without so much as a backward glance; but evidently the driver knew his duty, for he nudged the ostrich horses into motion and guided the carriage away.

It felt uncomfortable to watch him go, like letting a door close when they did not have the key to hand. Yue could see the Upper Ring wall from here, but not the university, and the city was so bewilderingly large—

"He can be sent for, when we are ready to depart," Joo Dee said.

Yue turned around. Joo Dee was watching her with a kindly expression, eyes crinkling at the corners, and when Yue looked at her, she shrugged her shoulders.

"It is not—orderly, to leave an empty carriage waiting in the street," she added.

The Ministry for Cultural Authority was like the Upper Ring in miniature: beautiful, clean, and yet for all its detailed ornamentation it felt oddly—featureless, each hallway indistinguishable from the last. It was a city sort of beauty, Yue thought; a _stone_ city sort of beauty, made by people who depended on their workings to last. But of course she did not know the Ministry's halls—Joo Dee did not seem stymied by the place at all, so much of the sameness was, no doubt, in Yue's head.

Joo Dee stayed to one side, not letting any of them fall far enough behind to become lost, which was kind. And at last they came to a door that was different, grander; and Joo Dee pulled it open and bowed them into the room.

"Ah, yes," said the man behind the desk, and stood. "The Avatar and her companions. I am Long Feng. I am given to understand that you wish to speak to the king?"

.*.*.*.

"Yes," Katara said, and then bowed belatedly—it seemed like the sort of thing she ought to do. The room wasn't particularly warm, but she was uncomfortably sweaty. Joo Dee had made it sound like they might not see the king for months unless this Long Feng decided they had something worthwhile to say, and it suddenly felt like all she had to do was put one word in the wrong place and it would all be for nothing. "Yes, I—we—yes."

That was exactly the opposite of what she'd meant to do, but Long Feng just looked at her patiently, attentively.

"There's an eclipse," she blurted out.

Long Feng exchanged glances with Joo Dee. "As there tend to be, periodically," he said, but leadingly rather than unkindly.

"This one is different," Katara said. The whole explanation was long, and she only remembered about half of what Dae Hyun had said anyway, but the most important part was still clear in her mind: "This one will bring the Fire Nation low, if we can only—use it right."

"Ah," Long Feng said, half a sigh, and pressed his fingertips together. "And you would go to war, with this knowledge. Little wonder you wish to see the king." He looked at Joo Dee, and smiled; and then his gaze returned to Katara. "Please, Avatar: tell me everything."


	21. The Dai Li, Part 1

Thanks, as always, for new faves/follows since the last chapter! I'm posting this so fast, I wouldn't have thought anyone would have time. :P This chapter took an obscenely long time to beat into shape when I first wrote it—you guys are just lucky you don't have to wait. I apologize in advance to anyone with a genuinely firm grasp of the laws of probability; teatime with Toph and Iroh was such a delightful moment in the show that I couldn't bear to skip doing an alternate version of it, even though it's a little ridiculous to have them meet by chance in this scenario. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11: The Dai Li<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>The first time they'd gone to the Ministry of Cultural Authority, Katara had been too amazed to mind how it had ended. Long Feng had listened to everything they'd had to tell him without judgment, had apologized prettily for the fact that he could make no promises just yet, and had told them to come back in a few days. It had all seemed to be going perfectly: fine, the delay hadn't been exactly what Katara had been hoping for, but they'd come back and he'd take them to the king and everything would be fine.<p>

Except they had, and he _hadn't_, and it wasn't. Katara sighed.

She'd been expecting Joo Dee and the carriage and the walls, this time, and the lovely words Long Feng had used couldn't cover up the fact that he'd used them to say no. Again. And Joo Dee had smiled her pleasant smile and ushered them back outside, and now here they were in the carriage again, no further than they'd been this morning for all the distance they'd gone.

"It's only the second time," Aang said, hovering half out the carriage door so that he could look her in the face. "And—and probably the king really _is_ busy—"

"Too busy to crush the Fire Nation?" Katara muttered. "Nobody's _that_ busy."

She couldn't convey the real extent of her frustration without drawing attention; Joo Dee was in the carriage with them, telling Yue something about the street they were on which Yue was very courteously pretending to care about. But Aang seemed to get the point: he grimaced, his downturned mouth an apologetic glimmer in the growing dark.

"Well, kings and queens must be sometimes," he said, "or else the war would never have lasted this long to begin with."

Behind him somewhere there was a loud sound—Katara jerked in the carriage window and then shoved the curtain further open. Joo Dee had had everything closed up when she'd come to get them from the university; but what passed for winter in Ba Sing Se barely chilled Katara's fingertips, and it was plenty warm in the carriage. The first thing she'd done had been to yank her side window open. Oh, there was snow in the streets—or in the Middle Ring, there was. They hadn't crossed the wall back down yet, and the Upper Ring seemed to have been swept completely clean. But even in the Middle Ring it was only up to Katara's ankles.

And there wouldn't be more tonight: it was clear, the sky almost black except for lingering blue in the west—and a shower of brilliant red lights in the north, over the city.

"Fireworks!" Sokka said.

"Ah—yes," Joo Dee said, smiling. As if she ever wasn't, Katara thought grumpily. "Spring Festival celebrations in Ba Sing Se are famed throughout the Earth Kingdoms—"

"Spring Festival?" Katara said blankly. How could it be, already? She'd known it was getting late in the year, and she'd told herself again and again to remember that the sun would never go away—that there would be no fires, set and kept burning to guide it back. But something in her couldn't help protesting. Spring Festival couldn't _come_ until after that—until the day there was finally a dawn again, and you knew spring was really coming—

Homesickness welled up in her as fast and strong as a wave—and as hard to stop. For a moment, she wanted so fiercely to go home that it made her eyes sting, made tears well up between her eyelashes so that the fireworks blurred into a smudge of colors against the dark sky. She _hated_ this city—hated Joo Dee and her smile, Long Feng and his beautiful excuses, and, more than anything, this stupid invisible king who was nothing like Katara; who _could_ save the world, so easily, but couldn't be bothered to.

She didn't want anyone to see, but there was Aang on one side and everyone else on the other. Katara put her head down against the little windowsill and closed her eyes.

"Look," said Suki, touching Katara's shoulder, and when Katara looked up her vision was mercifully clear, the tears all blinked away. She was pretty sure Suki couldn't see anything, and even more sure when Suki just smiled at her and motioned to the other window. "This one's a dragon." The expression on her face was rapt; and Katara looked at her instead of at the sky, and then around the carriage.

"Well, sort of a dragon," Sokka said, sounding faintly judgmental, and across from him Toph huffed loudly and crossed her arms.

"Wow, yeah, they're _so_ pretty," Toph droned.

"They sound almost as nice—like music," Yue said, reaching over to touch Toph's elbow. "The bang when they start, and then the sound when they fly—"

"Screechy," Toph declared, "like, worst guqin in the world," but her arms came uncrossed.

Katara took one deep breath and then another, and looked back out her own window, where Aang was still floating hopefully. "New year," he said. "New start. It's not too late, Katara."

Katara leaned her face on her hand and watched a fountain of blue lights spin through the air. "I hope not," she said quietly.

Aang reached out like he meant to touch her hand and then made a face at himself. "I mean it," he said earnestly, and that made Katara snort suddenly—as though that were the problem, as though Aang had ever said anything he didn't mean.

"What's so funny?" Sokka said, and then his face changed; even in the dimness Katara could see his eyes go wide. "I mean, uh—unless that was just a cough. I'm sure that was just a cough. You aren't going to—_die_, are you? Like—"

"Just a cough," Katara said, before he could try to work out another Aang-related code word to throw in.

"I bet you guys could see the show real well from one of the university roofs," Toph said. "Plus then if you got too annoying I could shove you off."

Yue laughed, and Suki shrugged. "I guess it wouldn't hurt," Suki said. "I think we could stay up for a little while."

"Yeah, hey, night off from trying to save the world," Sokka said, and threw his hands in the air. "Who's with me?"

Katara glanced back out the window: Aang was looking at her hopefully. "Not too late," she said.

Louder than she'd meant to: "Oh, fine," Sokka said, "get all _responsible_ on me," and Katara couldn't have explained anyway with Joo Dee two seats away, so it was probably for the best that she was giggling too hard to even try.

* * *

><p>It was difficult to enter Chameleon Bay with any kind of subtlety, even though the Fire Nation no longer guarded the strait; so Tan Khai did not try. It was hardly necessary—they did not need to be inside the bay to see it. The smoke of Fire Nation warships was like a vast thundercloud over the water.<p>

Ominous, Mizan thought. Not to her, she had spent too much time serving underneath such billows to see them as anything but what they were. But the winds over the bay would carry that smoke over half the kingdoms; and Earth citizens would know it for what it was. There was only one thing north of the bay that would demand such resources.

"So many," Isani murmured beside her.

"They want to be certain," said Mizan. "This time they do not mean to fail."

"Last time they did not mean to fail, either," and the tone with which it was said told Mizan Tan Khai had said it even before Mizan turned around.

"They seem to be trying a little harder," said Mizan.

Tan Khai pursed her lips and said nothing.

"But if they are sailing up the river," Isani said, "they are not in the bay." She had the spyglass in her hand—her vision was much better than Mizan's—and she turned it toward the river's mouth. "The locks have changed the river; it may have had a delta once, but they have built up new banks to narrow it—to deepen it."

"A good chokepoint," said Tan Khai, and her tone was only grudgingly pleased but there was something like a spark in her eyes.

Mizan cast a glance over the rail. There were three ships alongside theirs and seven more behind, but that was all. After a great deal of arguing, Mizan had been permitted to take nearly all of the captured Fire Nation vessels with her, for they were faster by far than the pirates' Earth ships, and time was of the essence. But even if they'd had the use of the handful they had left behind, they would not have had much of a fleet. "Not so good that we will not need more ships," she said.

Tan Khai laughed, loud and sharp, deliberate. "Ah, yes," she said, "the other half of the plan," and she snorted. "If any Earth kingdom agrees to lend their ships to you, I will eat my boots."

"Your boots are safe," said Mizan mildly, and did her best not to smile. "I will not be doing the asking."

"Surely you do not expect them to send you their admirals unprompted," said Tan Khai.

"No, that would be a bit much to leave to fate," Mizan agreed. "But who in the Earth Kingdoms would trust a yellow-eyed woman, coming to them in a Fire Nation ship? You yourself have neatly demonstrated the difficulties."

Tan Khai was difficult, stubborn, humorless, irritating—but not stupid, much as Mizan had occasionally wished otherwise. "You think _I_ will do it for you?" she said.

"I think you want this mission to succeed," said Mizan. "I think you can imagine no greater disaster for the Earth Kingdoms than the fall of Ba Sing Se. I think you know that the fleet they are sending up the river is the largest fleet of Fire Nation ships that anyone has ever seen, and I think you know that even if we sought to capture the smallest bay in the world, to hold the narrowest of all rivers, it would be best done with more than eleven ships."

Tan Khai stared at her for a long moment, face blank and still, and then looked away and sighed. "One day I will cut out your tongue," she said, "so that I will once again be able to do as I please, knowing there will be no one left in the world who will be able to convince me to do otherwise."

"I knew you could be made to see reason," Mizan said, sweetly.

* * *

><p>Suki woke early; she always had, at home, and even with all the windows shuttered here, no creeping sun or too-loud birds, it was a difficult habit to break. Toph was a noble family's daughter who had never been asked to rise with the dawn, and Sokka rarely woke earlier than he had to. Katara had woken first now and then, but since their second meeting with Long Feng she had slept the sleep of someone exhausted from worrying and waiting. And Yue—Yue wasn't used to there <em>being<em> a dawn this time of year. She had told Suki a little bit about the celebrations up north, the great hunt on the last day of real light and the feasts that came after, everybody stuffing themselves and then sleeping until they woke up enough to eat some more.

Suki wouldn't have believed it, except she'd seen for herself how low the sun got. They'd left before midwinter so Katara could talk to Avatar Roku, but even that early the sun had turned lazy, never climbing more than a handswidth from the horizon. The winters Suki was used to had varied with the sea, sometimes mild and sometimes raging; but there was always a sunrise, and Suki had always woken with it.

She took her fans out into the corridor and practiced. There wasn't really a better way to use the time with everybody else asleep, and the need to be quiet forced her to stay light on her feet, to concentrate. The exercises were calming, almost meditative, and she couldn't have said how long she'd been doing them when at last she heard voices.

Suki didn't rush herself; she finished the sequence and then closed her fans with a snap. The voices were louder than they had been at first, she thought—somebody had opened the door.

"There are some days when I think maybe I could get this fan thing down pretty good," Sokka said, "and there are some days where you do _that_ and I'm pretty sure I might as well be a toddler."

He sounded hilariously aggrieved, and Suki couldn't help laughing. "Say that again after I tell you about the time I was trying to practice with Mikari and I hit myself in the face."

Sokka raised his eyebrows, disbelieving.

"No joke!" Suki said. "I gave myself a bloody nose. You might feel clumsy, but I'm telling you, there are heights you have yet to reach." She was close enough to bump him with her elbow, and did; the stone floor was cold against her bare feet, but he was as warm as always.

"Well, hey, lead on, o master," he said, and winked.

Everybody else was still draped across their beds—or Toph was, at least, on her belly with her feet kicking lazily. Katara had rolled over to face her, and Yue was sitting up, back perfectly straight, like she didn't know how to sit any other way.

"I just don't understand why he's not _doing_ anything," Katara was saying plaintively; Yue was reaching out as though to pat her on the shoulder, and both of them looked over with wide eyes when Toph snorted.

"Oh, come on," Toph said. "It's classic! There could be a dozen reasons he'd make it take longer—to make himself seem important, or because he's doing the same thing to five other people who want to talk to the king. Must be great to have 'Oh, I'm afraid the Avatar takes precedence' to use as an excuse." She made her voice low and ingratiating, Long Feng almost exactly, and spread her hands out in a parody of apology.

"But," Katara said, and then couldn't seem to figure out what to say next.

"I knew you guys came from the middle of nowhere," Toph said, "but, wow. Do you dance in a circle and hold hands and sing songs all day?"

"Actually, we're mostly pretty busy," Sokka said, dry, "hunting down angry animals three times our size and killing them."

Toph made a face in his general direction, and then shrugged. "I got lucky," she said. "I was pretty much useless for matchmaking and stuff, they mostly left me out of it. But I still had to go to all the dinners, all the operas—sit in the family pavilion during festivals, that kind of thing. And it's never as simple as it looks. Everybody wants to get something from you; or wants to keep you from getting something; or wants to look like they're helping you get something when really they're trying to get it for themselves."

"And which do you think Long Feng is?" said Sokka.

Toph pursed her lips. "I don't know," she said, "but I don't like him. He feels oogy."

"Oogy," Yue repeated, leadingly.

Toph held out her hands. "Look, I can tell when people are lying because it makes them nervous; their hearts speed up, they breathe faster, it's like they're tickling me and expecting me not to notice. Usually. But there are some people—like Princess Azula, or this Long Feng guy—it's like they've done it so often their bodies don't know the difference anymore. He feels the same way no matter what he's saying, and he's not nervous or afraid or even sorry to keep telling you no."

At that, Katara flopped over onto her back with a sigh, and Suki's heart broke a tiny bit for the expression on her face.

"There has to be _something_ we can do," Katara said. "Something we haven't tried yet—some way to speed things up or—or pressure him—"

"Perhaps the university president," said Professor Zei.

Suki blinked at Katara, who blinked back and then sat up, twisting around to look at the door—the door Suki and Sokka had left open, the door by which Professor Zei was standing and inclining his head apologetically.

"Forgive me," he added, "I only meant to tell you they will be serving breakfast in the university halls soon, if you would like to eat with the students. I did not—I could not help but overhear."

"Do you think that would help?" Suki said.

Professor Zei shrugged. "It would not hurt," he said. "The post of university president is highly esteemed—dating back to the founding of the university, of course, when the nineteenth king formally—well." He cleared his throat. "Surely it would do no harm to inquire."

Sokka looked suddenly torn. "But, uh—"

"We won't have to skip breakfast," Katara said, rolling her eyes.

"No, indeed—she often eats in the Hall of Plentiful Delights," said Professor Zei. "It is not far away at all."

"The Hall of Plentiful Delights?" Sokka repeated, grinning, and clapped his hands together briskly. "Well, all right, then: let's go find her!"

* * *

><p>The bao was fresh, not yesterday's leftovers, and Li Chen leaned in to breathe in the smell before piling her plate high. She already had a bowl of noodles and broth, and she balanced it all carefully as she maneuvered back to a table.<p>

Half her department heads thought she was out of her mind for eating in the student halls instead of in her office—her grand, thick-walled, sunlit office, which also happened to be incredibly cold in the morning, not to mention silent as death until Wu Shou arrived. In all honesty, eating in the student halls was the hour of Li Chen's day that she loved best. The life she led was in many ways not unlike a war, and she a general; and every student who sat in those halls, chatting and arguing, reading aloud to each other as they slurped their noodles—every one was a victory. She had fought and won them all, and who could blame her if she wished to bask in it a little? For all the forces arrayed against her in this city, there were students in the university halls; the books they read were missing no pages, the scrolls they studied went uncensored. Few true generals ate their breakfasts as contentedly as Jian Li Chen.

The tables in the Hall of Plentiful Delights were long and narrow, the current favored style in the city—only Lower Ring families ate at round tables these days. Li Chen stood by to let a student pass at the corner of one table, and let her gaze rove for a moment; this was how she discovered that today's breakfast would perhaps be less contented than she had hoped.

She could not see the girl from where she was standing, not at first; she could not see any of them except Zei Wenhui, but she saw him and knew at once that they were there. Li Chen had made a careful study of the habits of her staff and had forgotten none of it in Zei Wenhui's absence: she had seen the man in the dining halls at an actual mealtime only twice before, and one of those times his office had literally been on fire. Zei Wenhui thought of the university dining halls as things that happened to people who did not have enough research to do, and might have starved to death years ago but for the servant Li Chen had assigned to take meals to his office at regular intervals.

But he was in the dining hall today, at a reasonable hour for eating, and that meant something unusual was happening. There was a chance it did not have to do with the small retinue of unlikely companions Wenhui had brought with him, but that chance was tragically miniscule. Everyone who had set foot on university grounds in the last two weeks knew that the Avatar had come to Ba Sing Se, even if they did not know why; and Li Chen knew why.

Or at least she had made an educated guess. She had not become university president, had not lasted as long as she had, by being a fool: she knew that the Avatar had gone to the astronomy department; had learned, in ten minutes' conversation with Dae Hyun, what it was that she had asked for; had been told within the hour each time the Dai Li had come and ferried the Avatar away.

Li Chen felt sorry for the girl, in some ways. The Avatar had dodged the Dai Li so cleanly at the outer wall, coming into the city with Wenhui—but she had not known to keep dodging, had lost whatever advantage she had begun with and had tangled herself in deeper besides. And now—

Now Li Chen _could_ help her, but was there any reason to believe she would succeed once helped? Li Chen had been locked in a delicate balance with the Dai Li for years, and could, if she chose, tip that balance; but it would have to be done at the right moment, for the right purpose, or it would be for nothing. The Dai Li would waste no time in eliminating her if she chose her moment wrongly—as she would waste no time in eliminating Long Feng, if she chose her moment rightly. Balance, Li Chen thought, and smiled wryly down at her bao.

She looked up again, and now she could see them all. The rumors working their way through the university were confused, as rumors often are, and Li Chen could understand why; the girl with the white hair was striking, noticeable, and it was natural to assume that the Avatar would be striking, noticeable—the Avatar! But Dae Hyun had told Li Chen that it was the other Water Tribe girl, the dark-haired one, and Li Chen watched her as Wenhui led her nearer.

Compared to the white-haired girl, she was ordinary-looking—the blue eyes were unusual in Ba Sing Se, technically, but only because there had been no one from the Water Tribe in the city for so many years. She gazed around the Hall of Plentiful Delights with interest, the picture of a country girl on her first trip to the city, and she said something to the boy beside her and then laughed at whatever he said in reply.

She caught sight of Li Chen soon enough—how could she not, when Li Chen was standing so still amid the eddying current of students, and looking straight at her besides? Li Chen watched her face change: curiosity swept across it, and then understanding, as she guessed who Li Chen must be; and then a pure and unforced hope, so painfully _obvious_ that Li Chen wanted to avert her eyes. How had the girl lived this long with so undefended a face? Surely the Dai Li could see every thought that crossed her mind. It would be so, so easy to help her—and so great a mistake.

Wenhui was only a few steps away, now, and already starting to bow; Li Chen smiled at him and inclined her head in response. "I take it your trip was a success, Professor," Li Chen said, and whatever formal greeting Wenhui had been composing tumbled away somewhere and left him standing there, beaming helplessly.

"Yes, indeed!" he said. "A very great success, very great—of course it took longer than I had hoped, I assume you received my notifications—"

"The university board was happy to grant you an extension," Li Chen said. "All eight times." She let her tone get a little dry, but it was quite true. Zei Wenhui was an excellent writer and researcher, and did his best work in the field; it had not been hard to convince the board that he was best left where he was. And it had paid off: anything at all from the archives of Wan Shi Tong was bound to be invaluable and one-of-a-kind, and Wenhui was, in his own field, a hopeless completist. Li Chen wondered just how much he had managed to bring back, and how many books he would get out of it. Perhaps it was time to add a few more shelves to the university library.

"Excellent!" said Wenhui. "I had hoped so, but of course any replies you might have made did not reach me in the desert—"

A throat was cleared somewhere behind him—the boy, Li Chen guessed, and Wenhui stopped himself mid-sentence and smiled at Li Chen apologetically.

"I beg your pardon—if I might introduce to you—"

"The Avatar," Li Chen said, before Wenhui could finish, and she turned her gaze to the girl.

"Katara," the girl said, and bowed, so low her braid slid over her shoulder and nearly touched the floor.

.*.

It was as Li Chen had expected.

She managed to convince them all to go get trays of their own, so that at least they would be able to eat while they talked to her—their time would not be wholly wasted. They described their journey in bits and pieces over bao and noodles, and Li Chen nodded in all the right places. The library had been their inspiration, she learned; it was Wenhui's fault, of course it was, and Dae Hyun had given them a date, and perhaps the spirit world was truly aiding them or perhaps it was simply the cycles of time. There had been such an eclipse much earlier in the war, Li Chen knew, that had caught the Fire Nation wholly off-guard, and judging by Dae Hyun's results there might well be another—or there might not.

So much uncertainty—and they had come a long way on uncertainty, stumbling from one coincidence to the next, but no one could expect Li Chen to do the same. A general, she thought to herself, eating in her hall of victories; and she would not trust the fate of her war to uncertainties.

"Well," she said to them aloud, "I can certainly lodge a request alongside your own; but I am afraid the Dai Li do not favor the university, in general." Both halves of this sentence were true—it was only combining them, as though one were related to the other, that made the whole misleading.

Katara's face fell into disappointed lines; she looked lost. How different it must be from the southern ice, Li Chen thought, when speaking to the nearest leader had meant she must duck into the same igloo as her grandmother! The Avatar had traveled halfway across the world and halfway back, and now she was in the same city as the very king of Ba Chang, and could not reach him.

"There may be other options," Li Chen said, her tone carefully comforting. "I will investigate."

"Well, it was worth a try," Sokka said, patting Katara on the shoulder before he rose to refill his tray.

"It was," Katara agreed, smiling reassuringly at Wenhui—of course it had been his idea, Li Chen thought, and not a bad one, except—

Except the Avatar had already made too many mistakes, and Li Chen simply could not afford to join her.

"I will do my best," Li Chen said warmly, and wished with gentle regret that it hadn't had to be a lie.

* * *

><p>The breakfast had been pretty good, Toph thought, even if it hadn't gotten them anywhere—and frankly she didn't think it was a big surprise, no matter what Katara had been hoping for. Toph had the impression that the Dai Li didn't make things easy for anybody but the Dai Li; maybe a noble family from the Upper Ring would be able to make a big enough fuss to get them past Long Feng and his stupid slick apologies, but the whole problem was that they couldn't get into the Upper Ring in the first place.<p>

So: nothing had changed. They were still stuck here, waiting for Long Feng to summon them again just so he could smile and bow and give them a whole new excuse; and, fine, the university wasn't a bad place, but Toph _hated_ waiting.

She considered her options on the way back from the Hall of Plentiful Delights. Sokka and Suki were out—they were already arranging practice time with their war fans somewhere behind her, which was sometimes entertaining, but more often resulted in Toph holding back the urge to vomit while their idiot heartbeats skittered under her toes. Bleh. And Katara—if Toph knew Katara even a little bit, she was going to head back and find somewhere to mope about what a terrible Avatar she was and how sad it made her.

Toph felt around for Yue's careful even steps, and then reached out until she found something not unlike an elbow. "What are you going to do when we get back?"

With her hand on Yue's arm, she could feel Yue shrug. "I have not worked with my pike in some time," Yue said. "Perhaps Sokka and Suki would permit me to join them in practice."

Maybe they were less ridiculous when you could see them, Toph thought, but somehow she doubted it.

Well, she wasn't going to hang out with the professor unless she had something to stop up her ears with, and Katara's invisible dead friend was a tough option to work with. The university was getting pretty boring, anyway, and they'd hardly ever been out in the city without Joo Dee smiling over their shoulders.

It wasn't hard to get away, once everybody was off doing their thing; and it wasn't hard to shuffle a chunk of the university wall aside, either. It really was a good wall, well-built—definitely stable enough to not fall on her head when she bent a piece out.

The wall between the Middle Ring and the Lower Ring was way thicker, so Toph climbed it instead—it was easy to feel when the guards at the top were coming around, and she could push her hands into the cool stone as easily as if it were water. The Middle Ring was so _boring_; and Professor Zei had talked about the Lower Ring in exactly the same way her parents had talked about Gaoling's lower districts. As far as Toph could tell, what being a "lower" anywhere actually meant was that there was stuff to do, and that people who lied to you didn't expect you to go along with it if you noticed.

Professor Zei had kind of made it seem like the Lower Ring was wall-to-wall criminals, but honestly it sounded pretty normal when Toph lowered herself off the wall on the other side. Sure, there was some angry yelling mixed in, but what it was mixed in with was the usual stuff: people selling things on the sides of the street, friends stopping in the road to talk, skinny little boys and girls running messages for a little pocket change, carriages and carts drawn by squawking ostrich horses or groaning badger oxen. Everything was dirtier and more crowded, but that just made it easier to blend in comfortably.

Toph walked down the street, dodging everybody who couldn't be bothered to dodge her, and letting the hum of a hundred thousand people settle into her bones. She should probably have stayed; Katara still needed help with her Earthbending, after all, and making her angry would have stopped her from feeling sorry for herself all day. It was just so _hard_—so hard to wait around, so hard to do nothing. Toph had left with Katara in the first place because she wanted to do something _better_ than just bending pebbles around in circles and smiling at people she didn't like, and now—now it felt like she was going nowhere just as thoroughly as she had been at home.

She stopped almost in the middle of the street, making a face at herself—what a stupid thing to think! She was half a continent away from home, she'd crossed a desert and a sea and half a dozen of these stupid walls, and she was teaching the _Avatar_ to shove boulders around like they were toy blocks. It was just that feeling, that same feeling of—of powerlessness, meaninglessness, being stuck repeating the same thing over and over not because it would get her anywhere but because somebody else wanted it that way. She _hated_ it.

"Excuse me—are you all right?"

She'd stopped pretty suddenly, and nearly everybody was just winding their way around her and minding their own business, except this one guy. He'd stopped a few steps away from her, a matching stillness in the rush of traffic in the Lower Ring, and he was just—standing there, looking at her.

"Fine," she said, but it sounded kind of funny coming out, and judging by the way the guy didn't move, he didn't believe it.

"I don't suppose you have a little time to spare?" he said, gentle. "I've been looking for someone to test a tea on, you see."

"A tea?" Toph said.

"Yes," the guy said, nodding. "My nephew has no head for teas; if I gave him a cup of the finest rock tea from the southern mountains, he would tell me it was hot leaf juice and mean it. But you look to me like a person of discerning tastes."

Weird guy, Toph thought, but he didn't seem dangerous. And he wasn't wrong—she'd drunk a lot of really good tea in her life. She didn't _care_ about it very much, but she knew her teas. Besides, it wasn't like this would be a bigger waste of her time than sitting around the university had been.

"Well, I should, because I am," she said, and the guy laughed.

.*.

He led her down the street to a little tea shop—"Welcome to Pao Family Tea House," he said gravely, and waved her inside.

He worked there, apparently, and he'd been out on the street using his midmorning break to inspect some of the teas for sale nearby.

"I have been working on this blend for several days," he explained, shuffling back and forth behind the counter, "but it still does not taste quite right."

It was sort of calming, to sit there by the counter and listen to the bubbling teapots, the soft hiss of steam—at this hour, there was only one other person in the tea shop, and she was sitting all the way over by the door nursing a single cooling cup.

"So," the guy said, when he had finished setting up his blend to brew. "I do not mean to pry, but you looked like you had something on your mind."

Toph hesitated a little, but—it didn't matter what she said, did it? There wasn't anybody to hear her except Weird Tea Shop Guy and maybe the lady in the corner. "Has—has there ever been a thing that you knew really, really needed to happen, but it was up to somebody else to decide whether it happened or not, and the only thing you could do was wait for them to pick? Even though it was really important, and it was really obvious to you that they needed to pick _this_ way, but they just wouldn't do it?"

The guy was quiet for a moment. "Once or twice," he said at last, light.

Toph sighed and put her head down against the counter. "How did you keep from strangling them?" she asked her knees.

"I know it can be very hard to wait," the guy said, "but sometimes you must."

"Maybe if you think they're going to pick right," Toph said, "and they just need some time, but what if—what if you don't trust them? What if you're pretty sure they're going to pick wrong just to make things harder for everybody, and you can't stop them—you can't even make them pick faster so you can start fixing everything they're going to mess up when they pick wrong?"

"This sounds like a very complicated situation," the guy said mildly. "Good thing our tea is ready."

Toph listened to him lift the pot, to the clink of the cups and the soft rush of pouring water, and then the guy slid one cup halfway across the counter and she picked it up. It smelled pretty good, as experimental blends offered to you by guys you'd just met in the street went; she took a little sip and let it slide over her tongue, rolled it around in her mouth and let the flavor seep in.

"Give me some time to think about it," she said, setting her teacup down and inclining her head toward it.

"Of course," the guy said, gracious, and then leaned in a little over the counter. "And as to your problem: if there is nothing you can do to sway their choice, and nothing you can do to hurry them—then you have your answer. Do nothing."

Toph slammed her hands into the edge of the counter; behind her, she heard the lady by the door startle, her cup clattering against her table. "_That's_ your advice? Are you kidding?"

The guy didn't flinch. "If you can have no hand in the outcome," he said, as calm as ever, "then this fight is not yours to win or lose." He leaned back and shifted—spreading his hands, Toph guessed. "Why waste your energy worrying over it when there is nothing you can do? Better to turn your thoughts to other matters, wouldn't you say?"

Toph opened her mouth and couldn't decide what to say with it; she huffed instead, and then reached out for her abandoned cup and took another sip of tea. It really was pretty good, but the guy was right, there was something a little weird about it. "You're just trying to get me to tell you what I think of the tea," she said at last.

The guy laughed. "It is only reasonable that, having set your complicated situation aside, you will need something else to occupy your thoughts," he said. "If you should happen to choose my tea, I would consider it a great honor."

Toph took another swallow. "The finish is too sweet, I think," she said, and set her cup down. "So that's all I can do? Accept it?"

The guy took a sip from his own cup. "Mm, yes!" he said, sounding pleased. "I see what you mean. The flavor in this blend is not balanced correctly. I will have to put together a new batch with a different blend."

Toph made a face. "Was that secret advice that only sounded like it was about tea?"

She couldn't tell for certain, not without touching him, but she was pretty sure the guy was smiling. "It would not be a poor model to consider," he said. "Sometimes it is best to set what can no longer be changed aside, and seek—alternatives."

"Don't wait," Toph translated. "Or—keep waiting, but try to figure out another way to get it done?"

"You cannot spend your life waiting for other people to finish making decisions for you," the guy agreed. "Especially when they cannot be trusted to make good ones. You must try to make them for yourself."

Toph swirled the last of her tea around in her cup, thinking. Going around things wasn't something she spent a lot of time doing, not when she could punch through them; but this guy kind of made it sound like going around things _was_ punching through them, in its own way.

She swallowed the last of her tea and set the cup down on the counter with a clink. "I should thank your nephew," she said.

The guy went still on the other side of the counter. "Oh?"

"I'm guessing you didn't get this good at giving advice without some practice," Toph said. "Does he make a lot of mistakes?"

"The mistakes were not all his," the guy said, a little quietly.

"Well, either way," Toph said, "he's lucky. If he doesn't appreciate you, tell him from me that he's an idiot." She stepped away from the counter far enough to bow a little. "Thank you," she said, and poked a finger into the sash at her waist. "How much for the tea?"

"Please, please," the guy said, "you did me a kindness by tasting it for me."

Toph grinned. She was starting to get this guy, sort of. "I think you did me the kindness by asking me to," she said, but she didn't push. "Thank you for—for what you said."

"Of course," the guy said, gently, and then paused for a moment. "Are you in a very great hurry?"

Toph thought about it. "Actually," she said slowly, "I'm kind of taking today off."

"Well! I would consider it a second kindness if you would stay for another cup," the guy said. "Your only tea today should not be my poor experiment. What do you say?"

"... Are you sure?" Toph said. It wasn't quite what she'd meant to say; but the longer she stood there, the more appealing it was: no Dai Li, no Long Feng, no world-saving, just—a seat at a quiet tea counter.

The guy laughed and there was a shuffle of sandaled feet against a floor, a clinking of ceramics. "Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger," he said, "is one of life's true delights."

"If you say so," Toph said, skeptical, but she felt herself smile as she sat back down. "You better make me something really good, though."

"I expect I will come up with something," the guy said.

* * *

><p>Joo Dee received the summons late in the day. She had been quite busy all afternoon, thoroughly reviewing the background and family connections of a merchant who wished to relocate to the Upper Ring—there were questions about some of his second and third cousins, so if approved he would have to be watched for several years, which was a commitment of resources that would have to be carefully considered. She was not displeased to leave the dizzying stack of files behind.<p>

The walk to the Office of the Grand Secretariat had become a sort of meditative routine for her, she had done it so many times; she concentrated on calming herself as she walked, breathing deeply, letting her frustration with unclear notations and illegible surveillance entries slide away. It was always best to meet Long Feng with a clear mind.

He looked up when she entered, waited without moving as she bowed appropriately low, and when she straightened up again he met her eyes and tilted his head inquiringly. "The Avatar is a problem," he said, his tone offhand, as though it were a thought exercise of the sort she had so often faced in training. "Do you agree?"

Joo Dee considered it carefully, considered her answer even more carefully. When Long Feng was in this mood, phrasing was everything. "The Avatar—could become a problem," she said at last. "She permitted herself to be turned away a second time, but may not be so willing again."

Long Feng sat back and looked at her. "Options," he said.

Joo Dee began with the most obvious choice. "Kill her," she said. "A permanent solution, and one with tempting corollaries; but there is no guarantee that an Earth Avatar would be born within the borders of Ba Chang, and far too many people would notice and investigate her untimely death. Ultimately inadvisable."

Long Feng looked away for a long moment, face blank; he _was_ tempted, Joo Dee thought. But then he brought his gaze back to her and nodded, sighing a little through his nose. "Agreed," he admitted.

"Remove her," Joo Dee offered next. "Her and her companions. Something relatively quiet—drug their food in the evening, perhaps, and then carry them from the city in the night and forbid them re-entry. A poor option; they are unlikely to accept this fate with grace, and their disappearance will be as readily noticed by their friends within the city as if they had been killed. Also inadvisable."

"Agreed," Long Feng said, and this time there was no hesitation.

"Talk to her," Joo Dee said, and hoped it was not obvious that this was the choice she favored. This assignment had become a tremendous strain. Not because she felt sympathy for the girl—she did, of course, but the best agents of the Dai Li were always the most sympathetic. It was easier to control people when you understood them: when you could step into their shoes and see what moved them, what they feared, what they wanted. Sympathy was a skill to be cultivated.

No, it had become a strain because she had begun to fear that no one else had reached the same level of understanding. The methods she had been instructed to use were tailored to Middle and Upper Ring aristocrats, who—who knew the rules, for lack of a better way to say it. Who had spent their lives learning to be silent, to agree, to do as they were told. Oh, the higher noble families pushed, now and again, but their concerns tended toward the petty, the easily resolved; none of _them_ had ever decided they wished to make the king go to war. They knew the bounds of the game and how it was played, and it would not occur to any of them to overturn the board.

The same could not be said of a peasant girl from the clans of the southern ice.

"Talk to her?" Long Feng repeated, eyebrows raised.

"She is the Avatar," Joo Dee said. "She understands responsibility, duty, the preservation of balance—all the things that drive us. If it were laid out for her in terms she could understand—that we do as we do for the sake of the city, that we refuse to countenance loss of lives or loss of tradition—" Joo Dee broke off and spread her hands. "Surely these are things a daughter of the Southern Water Tribe could not argue."

"Possible," Long Feng conceded, but his tone was not warm. The idea did not please him, Joo Dee thought, and she inclined her head to him and kept her eyes down.

"Intimidate her," Joo Dee said, another option added to the list, and when she looked up again, Long Feng's gaze was intent.

"Wait for her to come to us again?" he said. Skeptical, but the interest in his eyes was obvious; he was poking holes now because this plan pleased him, because he wanted her to tell him that they could be patched.

Far be it from her to displease the Grand Secretary.

"It is easier done here, that is true," she said, "but she will come whenever we ask it. Send me; I will tell her that her petition has been approved at last, that she and her companions must complete a final security check and then they will be taken to see the king. She will come." There were risks; fear made some people cowards, but it made others angry, and the southern ice surely did not teach cowardice to its daughters. But she was only one girl, and the whole of the Ministry of Cultural Authority was against her, the highest and thickest of walls in a city that prided itself on them. What could she hope to do to them, here in their own halls?

Long Feng looked across his desk at her and smiled, slow and satisfied. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it shows promise. But—an escort, I think, for the Avatar. To take her directly from the university grounds. Surely that would only be appropriate."

Ah, yes—it doubled as a chance to strike out at the university, to remove the Avatar from their grip by the Avatar's own choice. No wonder the idea appealed to Long Feng so much.

"And," he added, "of course I would so love to give her the good news myself."

"Of course, Grand Secretary," Joo Dee said, and bowed.


	22. The Dai Li, Part 2

It was good, Iroh thought, to have company. Zuko did not come to the tea house until the afternoon, most days; Pao Yuen was a fair man but not a rich one, and could not pay both of them to do nothing during slow hours.

In point of fact, Pao was poor both in money and in his taste for tea—Iroh did not know for certain, but he suspected that the tea house belonged to Pao Yuen because it had belonged to many other Paos, and not because Pao Yuen himself found any delight or pleasure or joy in tea. Such a terrible curse; and Iroh was determined that Pao's innocent customers should not share it, which was why he had begun handling the brewing as often as possible. Even if Pao could not be made to appreciate tea, that tragedy should not be compounded by allowing him to ruin it for others.

So Iroh had a great many teapots at his disposal these days, and a great deal of tea—and the girl from the marketplace had been quite right about the unsuitable flavor in his most recent blend, but surely that meant she deserved to have a few truly fine cups, as a reward for her thoughtfulness.

"Here," he said, "one more—you will like this one."

She laughed. "I've liked them all," she said, but she took the cup of pu-er from him when he held it out. He would have thought her blind, to judge by her eyes alone; but she had not asked for any help, and she had not knocked any of the cups over, though there was now a line of four at her elbow.

The pot of pu-er was a special request from the corner table near the door—Iroh had added extra water, extra tea, so the girl from the marketplace might have some, because Pao Yuen's pu-er was fine and dark and strong and he thought that she would like it; and now that he had poured hers he must pour the rest or risk overbrewing it all. He set out six cups and began to pour, and when he reached the third, there was a clink and a sigh.

"That one _was_ good," the girl said, gracious, and then stood.

"No more?" Iroh said.

The girl grinned. "You just spent the afternoon giving me about a week's worth of tea," she said. "I just hope you don't get in any trouble—"

"No, no," Iroh said. "I promise you. It was my pleasure; there will be no trouble."

She smiled at him over the counter, over the neat line of cups, and then she bowed. "Thank you," she said, without preamble.

Iroh smiled back, even though he was not sure whether she could see it. "I hope you will not wait until you have another problem," he said, "to come back and have tea with me again."

She bowed again and turned away, and he might have watched her go except that there were still three empty cups in front of him with no pu-er. He poured carefully into the fourth, and had paused to wipe a stray drop from the spout of the teapot when there was a sudden commotion at the door.

For all that he had done in order to blend in here—cut his hair, worn Earth Kingdom clothes without complaint—Zuko did not quite hold himself right; he had spent far too long being reminded that bowed shoulders or a lowered head were signs of weakness, and far too long learning to fear and hate the idea of weakness in himself. But the door to Pao Family Tea House was not wide, and Zuko had with his unbowed shoulders struck none other than the girl from the marketplace, on her way out.

"Whoops," she said, "sorry," and dipped down into a partial bow; and Zuko stared at her for a brief still moment and then—inclined his head?

Iroh blinked.

Three times, he thought. That made three times in as many days that Zuko had done something unexpected—they had been small, all three of them such small things, but unexpected, and in ways that had made Iroh look at Zuko more closely each time.

It was no secret in the royal court of the Fire Nation that Iroh had been a different man after he had hunted down the last dragon, a different man again after the death of Lu Ten, a different man again after his journey to the spirit world. Indeed, Iroh knew precisely how much it sometimes took before people permitted themselves to change. And he had hoped to help guide Zuko a little way toward that path, so that when Zuko at last stepped onto it he would at least have less blood upon his hands than Iroh had.

Though of course it was not hard to have less blood upon your hands than Iroh had; and there was no better reminder in the world of that than this city.

Except that not eight years after Iroh had so contentedly planned out the deaths of a hundred thousand, the son of Ozai was, wholly unasked, inclining his head to an Earth Kingdom girl, and holding the door open for her as she turned away so that it would not bark her heels.

Perhaps, Iroh thought, there was hope for the children of Sozin after all.

"You are in a good mood today, nephew," he observed, as Zuko approached the counter, and possibly it qualified as a fourth surprise that Zuko did not snap or glare over Iroh's having pointed it out; Zuko only looked at him and hesitated.

"It seemed unnecessary," he said slowly, "to—get angry."

"Mm," Iroh said, but he could not help smiling.

Zuko saw it—of course he did—but he did not scowl or turn away, and that, Iroh thought, might very well make five surprises. He looked forward to the day when he might lose count; or, even better, when these things might no longer qualify as surprises.

Zuko cleared his throat, swallowed, cleared his throat again, and then as though he could not hold it in any longer, said in a sudden rush: "Is it so simple?"

Iroh looked at him inquiringly.

"To choose to—to permit yourself to be—"

"Do you think you lost something, by being kind?" Iroh said, and it was easy to be gentle, to be patient, because he knew the workings of Zuko's mind as though they were his own—and they had been, after all, not so very long ago. "Do you think that she thinks less of you for it? That I do?" The pu-er pot was still in Iroh's hands; he looked away to pour the fifth cup, and then turned back and met Zuko's eyes. "And if we did, do you think we would be right to?"

He looked away again once he had said it; Zuko had never liked to feel watched, judged, and Iroh could not blame him. The sixth cup remained, for the corner table: Iroh tipped the pot one last time and poured without splashing. Pu-er was not Iroh's personal favorite, but that did not mean he did not take pride in a well-brewed batch, and he breathed in a gentle whiff of bitter steam and sighed happily.

And now, surely, Zuko too had stewed sufficiently—he did well given a little time to think, but too much at once and the boy got tangled up in his own mind, second- and third-guessing himself. "For the corner table, nephew," Iroh said, and reached beneath the counter for a tray, which he presented to Zuko with a small flourish.

Zuko took it with a sour look, but Iroh could see that his heart was not in it, and if he was not smiling when he handed the men at the corner table their tea, he was at least not scowling.

Iroh busied himself with the pot so that he would not watch, so that Zuko would not feel pressured; besides, he ought to keep the pu-er warm in case the corner table wanted a second cup, and yet he could not simply leave it on full heat, overbrewing tragically while they drank—so very tempting to simply let it cool and then bend it warm again if needed, but how would he explain it?

"Ridiculous," Zuko said behind him.

Iroh turned with the pot still in his hands, and looked at Zuko inquiringly.

"Your questions," Zuko elaborated. "Ridiculous." He sounded quite normal, and Iroh might have looked away, sighed and cursed himself and begun to try again, except that Zuko hesitated, setting the tray down gently on the counter and looking away himself.

"Zuko—"

"You never think less of me," Zuko said to the floor, rapid, brows drawn down into a frown as though it were an accusation. "You never have—all the things I've done, and you never—" He broke off and shook his head, still frowning, as though it were an inconvenience, a minor displeasure—too-strong tea; an undercooked dumpling; forgiveness. "I know that Father was unhappy with you, after—everything," he added, looking up again at last. "That your position was difficult."

Difficult, Iroh thought. What remained of Lu Ten cradled on a bier before him, a city that he had half starved to death behind him, and Ozai—Ozai who looked at other men and saw mirrors, who would never in his heart believe that Iroh would not take from him as he had taken from Iroh—difficult, Iroh supposed, was one word for what it had been.

"But you were a prince," Zuko said, "you were a general. You—" He stopped and swallowed, looked away and then back at Iroh as though he could not decide which was more difficult. "You did not have to come with me."

Iroh wanted a little bit to laugh—had Zuko truly never thought about it before? Oh, _nephew_—and a little bit to cry; Zuko looked so thoroughly confused, as though, having now realized Iroh had had a choice, Zuko could not fathom why he had made it the way he had: why anyone, given on the one hand Zuko and on the other hand anything else in the world, would choose Zuko.

"I did not," Iroh agreed, gentle.

Zuko looked at him, uncertain, and Iroh took mercy and did not make him ask.

He reached out instead, laid his hands over Zuko's narrow, unbowed shoulders; gripped tight, and made sure Zuko met his eyes. "I would not for anything in this world have let you go alone," he said.

Zuko stared at him; over his shoulder, a man at the corner table caught Iroh's eye, tilted his head in Iroh's direction and raised his cup, and Iroh let go of Zuko and turned away briskly to pick up the pot of pu-er. Good, good; still hot.

Zuko had seen Iroh's gaze shift, clearly, for when Iroh looked back he was moving away, tray in hand. He gathered four cups from the corner table, two of the men waving him away, and came back to Iroh at the counter with a neatly-balanced tray; he was looking at Iroh blankly, a little warily, like Iroh was a stranger, or a kind of animal Zuko had never seen before.

Iroh poured the pu-er carefully and said nothing, and Zuko watched his hands in silence and did not look at his face. When the tea was all poured, Iroh drew away, but Zuko did not move for a moment.

"Nephew—"

"Thank you," Zuko said, and to judge by where he was looking, he was saying it to the tea-tray; he turned away so quickly after that he nearly spilled everything, and hurried away toward the corner table without looking back.

Iroh smiled. "You are welcome, Prince Zuko," he murmured to the air Zuko had left behind, and he turned around and set the pot of pu-er on the shelf above the stove, humming.

* * *

><p>The university was not, all things considered, an unpleasant place to wait, Yue thought. Of course they would all have preferred to not be waiting in the first place; but given that they were, they might as well do it somewhere large, comfortable, and interesting.<p>

There were athletic facilities, which Professor Zei had been only too happy to help them find yesterday—she and Sokka and Suki had sparred not only with each other but also with some of the university students, who were mostly taller and stronger and therefore excellent practice. They had stayed so long that Yue hadn't been sure what they would find when they returned to their rooms, but there had been no flooded rubble, no yelling—no Toph at all, in point of fact. Katara had been asleep, and had woken murmuring apologies to Avatar Aang for having nodded off on him; and Toph had come back from wherever she had been not very long after, smiling more than Yue had seen her do since they had gotten to Ba Sing Se.

Today they'd only intended to wander around the university grounds together, for a little while—Toph was still in a good mood, Sokka and Suki holding hands, and no one seemed to want to split up, as though after the day apart to calm them, they now wished to be reminded that they were not alone.

And they had gravitated naturally to one of the larger buildings, which turned out to be none other than the university library.

It was tremendous—Yue was reminded of Professor Zei's glowing descriptions of the library of Wan Shi Tong, which he had been only too happy to offer them repeatedly on the trip north. And of course it must have been larger than the university library, must have contained more, or Professor Zei would not have gone to find it; but standing here, it was difficult to imagine that such a thing was possible.

"Look at them all!" Sokka said.

"Look at _what_ all?" Toph grumbled, rolling her eyes, and Yue had to lift a hand to her face to hide her smile.

"Surely you can feel them," she said, when she was sure her face was calm again. "Feel how large the room is. There are a great many books."

"Yeah, great," Toph said. She raised her hands and waggled them, eyes wide, in a parody of excitement. "Doorstops!"

Yue let herself smile, that time, and moved toward the nearest shelf: they were arranged in rows, practically walls of vast stone shelves except that there were dozens in this single hall, and she thought perhaps she saw a winding set of stairs at the far end, which meant the shelves probably did go all the way to the domed heights of the ceiling. "I cannot tell you what they look like," she admitted, "not in any way that will truly explain it. But we have come in near the Earthbending books—"

"Earthbending _books_?" Toph said, making a dubious face.

Yue scanned the books' spines; the characters were not shaped quite the way she was used to, but she could still read most of them. "There are biographies," she told Toph, squinting up at them. "_An Accounting of the Lives and Works of the World's Great Earthbenders_—in thirty volumes, it appears. _Earthbending Forms and Practices of the Southeast_, as compiled by Yeo Jung-min-"

Yue had never heard the name before, but when she said it, Toph's expression changed. "Yeo Jung-min?" Toph said. "She was one of the best Earthbenders in the south, back before the war. Master Yu never taught me anything she did, he said she was using corrupted forms or something, but there was this one guy in the dueling arena who wouldn't shut up about her."

"Fascinating," Yue said, and plucked the book from the shelf.

"What are you doing?" Toph said.

"We are the official guests of a university professor," Yue said. "Surely they will permit us to borrow a few books—" She stopped at the look on Toph's face, and reached out carefully to touch Toph's shoulder. "I am not making fun of you."

"Of course you aren't," Toph said, snide and sharp. "Have you ever made fun of anything in your entire life?"

Katara would have argued with her, Yue thought, but Toph was not talking to Katara. "I thought that I could read them to you," she said.

"Oh, come on, that's stupid—"

"I cannot Earthbend," Yue said. "You Earthbent for me once, so that I could cross the Yellow Seas without falling, because I could not do it myself." She held out the book. "You cannot read. I would consider it a privilege to read for you, if you will allow it."

Toph stood there for a long moment, her arms still crossed defensively; Yue waited, and at last Toph sighed, the line of her shoulders relaxing. "You're awfully hard to yell at," she said.

"If you decide you do not like being read to," Yue said, "tell me so and I will stop. I'm not doing this to torment you—I am your friend."

Toph tilted her head consideringly, and scuffed her foot against the floor. "Yeah, all right," she said. "And if I tell you I'm super interested in all thirty volumes of the _World's Greatest Earthbenders_?"

Yue eyed the shelf. "I am your friend who you should perhaps recall has only two arms," she said.

.*.

Together they went down the row, Yue reading titles off to Toph so that Toph could accept or reject them; and by the time they turned the corner and almost walked right into someone, Yue had a stack eight books high.

"Oh!" she said, over them, and tried to work out how to bow in apology without dropping any.

"No, no, please," said Jian Li Chen, and smiled. "Please—half the fault is mine." She inclined her head to Yue, and to Toph, and then spoke again. "If I am not mistaken, we met at breakfast yesterday?"

She was not mistaken, and, Yue thought, looking at her, she knew it; how much of an accident was it that the university president happened to be in the library at the same time that they were? "Indeed we did," Yue said aloud.

"You are the companions of the Avatar," said Jian Li Chen.

"Two Avatars," Toph said. "Sort of. One of them's dead."

Jian Li Chen looked at Toph sideways for a moment; and then she shook her head a little, and huffed out a breath that was not quite a laugh. "I pride myself," she said, "on being a woman of good sense—objective, clearheaded. There is a part of me that would like to sit at the Avatar's feet like a child and gape in wonder, I admit it; she walks with ghosts and spirits, her heart is older than this city." Li Chen met Yue's gaze, and all traces of laughter slid away from her face. "And yet she is still so young. Her shoulders seem too narrow to hold the world upon them."

There was a decision here, Yue thought; a decision being made, or pondered, or reconsidered, somewhere behind the words Jian Li Chen was and was not saying. Yue had no idea what it might be, never mind how to sway it. Best to be honest, then, and let Li Chen do what she would with it.

"Toph has come a long way to be here," Yue said. "I have come a longer way. Katara has come further than either of us; she will not turn back, whatever the breadth of her shoulders."

Jian Li Chen smiled at that, but her gaze remained on Yue's face, sharp and assessing. "You were highly ranked among your people," she said, and then, turning to Toph, "and you, you are a daughter of the house of Bei Fong. You have told me a little of your travels, and I have heard a great deal of rumor besides; but nothing has explained why you chose to give up these things to follow a girl barely older than you—a girl who is hunted by the Fire Nation, whose task is to stop a war that has rolled on for a hundred years over four continents."

"It does sound like a stupid thing to do when you say it like that," Toph said, thoughtful.

Yue elbowed her in the shoulder, and calmly ignored the indignant squawk that resulted. "After many years of quiet," she said, "the Avatar came to my city, and asked for my help; the Fire Nation followed her, and for a time I thought perhaps we would all pay dearly, for the fleet was vast and my city was not all it had once been. And then—"

"And then?" said Jian Li Chen, raising her eyebrows.

Yue made a helpless motion with her shoulders. "And then she saved the moon's life," Yue said, "and became the ocean, and overturned a thousand battleships with a wave the size of a mountain. Perhaps her quest is indeed hopeless, and we will all die burning; but after what I have seen her do, I find it hard to believe her story will end that way."

Jian Li Chen looked at her a moment longer, amused and wondering and measured all at once; and then she looked at Toph. "And you?"

"I wasn't around for that stuff," Toph said, "my story's way more boring. She just—" Toph paused, shifting her weight, and then made a face and shrugged. "I don't know. I'd been doing the same thing for a long time, and I figured I was okay with it that way—and then she came along, and suddenly I could see that everything could be different. That it could be better than it was, that I could _make_ it better than it was, and I just hadn't done it yet."

Jian Li Chen was silent for a moment, her gaze flickering back and forth between their faces; and then she let out a long, slow breath and tucked her hands into her sleeves. "Thank you," she said, bowing, and then she straightened up again and smiled at them. "You have been very kind, to answer my questions like this. Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

"Well, if we've run out of Earthbending books," Toph said, "we should probably find Katara. I don't think they're on this floor anymore, but there's a couple other people moving around in here, it's hard to tell—"

"The library is very large," Jian Li Chen agreed. "I would be only too glad to guide you through it until we find your companions."

"We would be very grateful," Yue said, and managed to dip a small bow in return without losing any books.

.*.

Toph was right: Katara and Sokka and Suki had left the first floor entirely, following one of the twisting staircases up two levels. Yue could hear their voices first: Sokka was saying, "Careful, careful!" and Katara was laughing. Yue was the first one up the stairs, and the moment she could see them, she understood why.

Suki had climbed the shelves so she could reach a book on the second-highest, fishing it out with a flourish; even as Yue watched, she pinned it to her chest with her chin, and climbed back down as easily as though she were on a ladder. When her boots touched the floor, she let the book drop into her hands, and held it out to Sokka. "I wasn't going to drop it," she said.

"I meant be careful with _you_, not the book! I mean, the book, too—"

"I wasn't going to drop me, either," Suki said, dry; but she smiled at Sokka right after.

Katara was watching them, still chuckling a little, with a book already open in her arms—and then she must have heard Yue step off the staircase, because she turned her head and waved in greeting. "Hey," she said, and then Jian Li Chen's hand or face must have cleared the top of the staircase, because her eyes went round like Earth coins. "Oh—President Jian—or—Lady?"

"Li Chen will suffice, truly," said Jian Li Chen, smiling.

"We didn't—um, we'll put all of these back—" Sokka fumbled the book Suki had given him onto a stack he had clearly already collected, but Li Chen lifted a forgiving hand before he could do more than drop it on the top.

"We accumulate knowledge here so that it may spread," she said. "While you are our guests, you may borrow as many books as you like."

"Great!" Sokka said. "Great, awesome, thank you—"

"What could _you_ possibly want books for?" Toph said.

"I can read!" Sokka crossed his arms defensively, glaring; and then his outraged expression turned sheepish. "Well, pretty well, anyhow—not like there were a lot of books at home. But I didn't even know dragons were real until we talked to Dae Hyun, and there's a whole _shelf_ about them! Big dragons, little dragons, dragons that live on mountains, dragons that live in the sea—there's even one about the first dragon who ever taught anybody real Firebending. And we're going to need that one, Katara, because I don't know how else we're going to find—"

A loud, echoing sound cut him off—thunder, Yue thought, or the explosion of a firework, except it was midday and the sky was clear; and then Toph frowned down at her bare toes and said, "Somebody's running."

The voice was faint at first, so faint they couldn't quite tell what it was saying, but then it got close enough to resolve into words: "—the university president? Honored Wu told me she was here—"

Li Chen took the three strides that lay between her and the railing of the stair, and called out, "Here!"

The running began again, and Yue did not need Toph to tell her so: the footsteps were fast and pounding, the hard flat sound of feet against stone, and then they stopped at the base of the stair. Yue could see him—a young man, another student, with his face red with effort and his plait coming half undone over his shoulder. "President," he said, and then had to stop to suck in another breath. "President Jian, it's the Dai Li. The Grand Secretary's at the gate, he won't wait, and Honored Wu said you should be told—"

Yue glanced at Li Chen's face. A moment ago her expression had been pleasant, a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth and eyes; now she was blank, still, wiped clean. It was in utter contrast to Katara, who had lit up like a firecracker.

"For me? To take me to the king—it's got to be—"

"I am sure that is what he will say," Li Chen said, but she did not sound pleased by it.

"I guess we didn't need your help after all," Sokka said, not unkindly.

Li Chen turned to look at them—at Sokka, and then at Yue and Toph, and then at Katara longest of all. "But you do," she said, and then looked away, shaking her head. "I had hoped there would be more time, at least—but then again perhaps it is best for the choice to come now, and so starkly. I wanted to wait; but you are the Avatar. Who else is there to wait for? What other opportunity did I think would come, if you passed by?"

Katara, Sokka, and Suki were wearing identical confused expressions; Toph was raising an eyebrow so high it was in danger of getting lost in her hair. "President Jian," Katara said, "I don't—"

"I am used to small actions," Li Chen said, thoughtful. "Perhaps that is it. The placement of tiles upon a game board, that is what I am used to; but this will not be small, this will not be quiet. That is why it feels so dangerous."

"President Jian," Yue said quietly.

Li Chen glanced at her, and then back at Katara. "I know you have no reason to believe it," she said, "but I will tell you anyway. If you go with the Grand Secretary now, you will never see the king in this lifetime."

.*.*.*.

"I don't get it," Sokka said. "That joke had no punchline."

"I assure you I am wholly sincere," said the totally completely lying woman. "What exactly do you know about the Ministry of Cultural Authority?"

"That we can't get in to see the king without them!" Sokka said. "What else matters?"

He didn't really mean it, it was just to make the point that Li Chen was suddenly being super weird, except that the look she got on her face after he said it kind of made his gut lurch. That was the look a person got on their face when you said something so stupid and dangerous that they didn't even know where to start, like "Why shouldn't I walk off this cliff?" or "But boiling water looks like it would be fun to touch!"

Suki rescued him, which he was starting to appreciate more and more every time it happened. "It's the ministry responsible for preserving tradition," she said. "That's what Joo Dee told us, anyway. Tradition and—order, I think she said."

"And that is quite true, in a manner of speaking," said Li Chen. "The Dai Li were founded hundreds of years ago, by Avatar Kyoshi, just as your order was; but the Dai Li have proven somewhat less true to her memory."

And what was that supposed to mean? "Okay, I get that what you're saying makes sense to _you_," Sokka said, "because you already know what you're talking about. But we don't, and we've spent a really long time trying to get this exact thing to happen, so if we miss our shot because you were busy being cryptic—"

"I apologize," Li Chen said. "Let me attempt to be clearer. I would be a fool to tell you preservation is not a worthy goal when we are standing in the middle of a library; but the Dai Li have lost any sense of moderation. They prize stability above all else—no matter the cost, no matter what must be given up to ensure it. Despite the best efforts of the Dai Li," and here her face twisted bitterly, "war came to Ba Sing Se seven years ago, and the upheaval was enormous. No matter what they have told you, I promise you: they will never risk its return."

"... I'm sorry, what?" Sokka said. "Its _return_—when do they think it went away? You're still _at_ war—"

"No," Li Chen said. "We are not."

Sokka stared at her—there were words that could express how much he didn't understand what was going on here, he was pretty sure, but it felt like he didn't know any of them.

"As far as the Ministry is concerned," Li Chen said, "and therefore as far as the king and his armies are concerned, Ba Chang's involvement in the Hundred-Year War ended when the siege of Ba Sing Se failed. The rest of the Earth Kingdoms may burn to the ground; but there is no war within these walls. Ba Sing Se," and her voice went heavy with mockery, "will be preserved." She spread her hands. "The last thing the Dai Li would ever help you do is present plans for battle to the king, and if they have come to you now, it is because they think they have found a way to make sure you never succeed."

When she had stopped, there was silence. She'd gotten a bit loud in the middle there, and over Li Chen's shoulders Sokka could see that wide-eyed students further down the row were staring at them—over the railing, he could see even more of them, gathering in an eerily quiet crowd on the ground floor, the faint rush of whispers no louder than a breeze.

Katara was staring, too, until her eyes skipped sideways and up in that way that meant she was looking her dead buddy Aang in the face.

"Why should we believe you?" Toph said, into the stillness. "If you knew all this stuff at breakfast, then you must have decided not to tell us. You said you'd help us, but you were never going to talk to the Dai Li at all—why should we trust you?"

"I urge you to consider what an odd and complicated lie this would make," Li Chen said, dry, after a moment.

"Like you couldn't hold ten lies this size in your head," Toph said. "Try harder."

Li Chen looked at her consideringly for a moment. "All right," she said. "I have told you they do not want you to see the king; surely I have also made it clear that I do not approve of their conduct, and in fact disagree with them in every possible respect. Through double negation, we arrive at a positive: I _do_ want you to see the king."

"You do," Katara said slowly.

Li Chen smiled at her, just a tiny bit. "A day ago, I could not have said it and meant it, Avatar; my circumstances are more complicated than you know, and the risk is great. But I am now committed to a path I had not set foot on a day ago, and can no longer afford to let you fail."

"Well," Sokka said. "I guess as motives go, self-preservation should be a pretty reliable one. If that's not also a lie, that is."

Li Chen glanced at him, sidelong, and then leaned toward the stairway. "How many of them are there?" she called down to the guy, who had pretty much caught his breath by that point.

"Many dozens," the guy said. "The Grand Secretary said he wished to provide an escort suitable for the Avatar's position."

"Well, there you are," Li Chen said. "Many dozens of them, and all Earthbenders—for that is among the traditions they consider themselves bound to preserve. If you go with them and they have lied, how will you escape? How many of you will come to harm at their hands?" She lifted her own hands and spread them, like she wanted them to see hers were harmless by comparison. "Come with me—me alone, and if I have lied to you, then hit me with a rock and run. I will have no way to stop you."

Katara looked at her, and then at Sokka; he shrugged. On the one hand, it seemed kind of ridiculous to just turn around and assume Long Feng and Joo Dee had both been lying to them the whole time. On the other hand, the lady made a good point—she'd be a lot easier to get away from, if that was what it came down to. When everybody might be lying, it was worth considering the practicalities.

"All right," Katara said at last. "Say we did go with you. How would you keep the Dai Li from coming after us?"

* * *

><p>It was absolutely fascinating to review his research notes, now that he had the words of an actual Airbender to refer to—a dead one, granted, but one who had been able to actually answer his questions! Marvelous. He could see, now, where errors had been made; how Guei Hua had misinterpreted the structure of the elders' council, how Wen Ba-Yuang had formulated her (incorrect) guess as to the likely location of archived records in the Eastern Temple—below, yes, but probably to the north or northeast, so perhaps the Fire Nation had not, in fact, burned them all, and if he could prove it perhaps they would grant him another year or two of fieldwork there—<p>

Footsteps? Or knocking? He paused, still bent low over a stack of papers. Footsteps, he hoped, and with any luck going _past_—no, that was definitely knocking. Damn. Perhaps if he simply remained silent—

"Zei Wenhui! Zei Wenhui, I know you are there."

Wenhui sighed and levered himself out of his chair. He had very much enjoyed his time in the desert, and would not have given it up for the world; but it was a luxury beyond imagining to once again have a comfortable seat—and one that need not be checked for scorpion lizards daily. What reason could Li Chen possibly have for coming to pry him from it?

"Professor? Professor!"

Wenhui blinked. He knew that voice; that was the Avatar.

He leapt a slanting stack of books and grabbed for the door, only just managing not to open it upon his own toes—in that respect, he thought, stone habitations were inferior to some of the other options. It was hard to stub your toe on a tent flap.

"President Jian," he said, "Avatar," and he bobbed a quick bow to each of them—he would have kept going, but Li Chen grabbed his shoulder before he could.

"I am sorry to do this to you," she said, "and I know you will not understand why I ask it. You have been gone a long time, Wenhui, and you have been ignoring politics for even longer; but I need your help, and I hope you will agree to give it."

Wenhui could not help casting a longing glance over his shoulder. "Will it take very long?" he said.

"Perhaps," Li Chen admitted, and then she smiled. "But I think you will enjoy it."

.*.

By the time Wenhui neared the university gates, it seemed everyone else on the grounds had already been told, and a crowd of students had formed and was growing larger by the moment. He shuffled his way through, dodging the occasional elbow, and came out by the gate unharmed; he straightened his hat, lifted his chin, and cleared his throat.

"I am here by the request of University President Jian—"

"But you are _not_ University President Jian," said the snide man with the narrow mustache. "This is absolutely ridiculous! I _demand_ that we be permitted entrance to the university grounds, as representatives of the Ministry of Cultural Authority—"

Wenhui opened his mouth and then closed it again, blinking. He had been about to ask why anybody should want to stop them—the Ministry of Cultural Authority sounded vaguely familiar, presumably a well-respected city institution, and he could see no reason for them to be barred from the grounds. Except of course that was not the same thing as a demand, and this, surely, was why Li Chen had wanted Wenhui in particular: this fellow needed a few things explained to him.

"Ah, I see the trouble—you have made a very elementary mistake." Wenhui shook his head. "It is not my area of expertise, of course, but assuming you are in fact employees of the city government—and this applies to royal appointees as well—I do not believe you have the authority to demand that the university gates be opened to you."

"Now see here—"

"It is actually quite fascinating! The autonomy of the university has always been jealously guarded by its presidents past—royal appointees themselves, as I am sure you know, but the king is only permitted to select them from a pool chosen by the university committee. The university was formally chartered by the nineteenth king of Ba Chang, and the original charter—we have it in the archives, of course—provides for the university to select its own president; that honor was then transferred to the twenty-fifth king, but historically that has always been regarded as a courtesy on the part of the university that has generously been granted to the king, rather than a—"

The snide man was staring at him. Wenhui was not sure why; it was all quite true. "That has _nothing_ to do with this, and I will not stand here and be lectured—!"

"But it does! It does, you'll see—we're getting there, I only wish to provide you with a little context!" Wenhui rubbed his hands together briskly and then clapped once. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes—the university charter. The charter also provides quite a sturdy foundation for the legal and physical autonomy of the university—of course we are bound to abide by city laws and regulations, at least in the general case, but the university is essentially granted its own governing body, which then can be thought of as _liaising_ with city government and royal authority, rather than being subordinate to—"

.*.*.*.

"Come on, sugar queen, be a rock!" Toph said; and Katara rolled her eyes and made a face, but was, Suki thought, an admirable rock. She planted her feet and pushed, and the university wall obligingly slid away from her with a gritty rumble.

"Quickly," said Li Chen when the wall had settled. "I am sure Wenhui and Wu Shou will do their best, but we should not waste what time they are able to give us."

The Dai Li hadn't surrounded the university or anything, so it wasn't hard to get out with the wall out of the way—Katara closed it neatly behind them when they were through, and then turned and lifted her chin. "See? I'm a _great_ rock," she said.

"Just 'cause your head's so hard," Toph said, and then dodged the punch Katara threw half-heartedly at her shoulder. "Yeah, all right, you'll do."

"Begging your pardon," said Yue, and dipped a small bow to Li Chen. "If I understand correctly, we must enter the Upper Ring in order to see the king. We have been waiting nearly since we arrived here for permission to do so, and have not received it—how do you propose to get us through?"

Suki was expecting Li Chen to look grave, to outline a plan that would be desperate or complicated or both at once; she was not expecting Li Chen to smile. "I propose that we walk up to the gate," said Li Chen, "and I will ask. I know the difficulties you have faced, and they were quite real; but I promise you, they will let us pass."

"Oh, come _on_!" Sokka said. "If I didn't know the other things we'd done, I'd say this was the most ridiculous thing we'd ever done! Are you serious?"

"This is not the moment for longwinded explanations," Li Chen said. "I would remind you: if at any point you feel deceived, we have agreed that you may hit me with a rock and run."

"I'm not sure deceived is the word," Sokka said.

"Bewildered," Suki suggested to him, doing her best not to grin.

"Much closer," Sokka allowed.

"Perhaps your quest for self-definition may be pursued while walking?" Li Chen said, delicately.

But Toph grinned widely and shook her head. "Nope! I've got a better idea." She dragged Katara over until they were both facing up the street, in the general direction of the distant wall of the Upper Ring. "Let's try a new trick today, princess," and she held out her fists palm-up and then _pulled_.

Half the street followed, in a ragged ring of paving stones around them, rising over the rest and lifting them all up; and then Toph began to move, Katara following suit tentatively and then more vigorously, and the paving stones trembled.

"Here we go!" Toph shouted, over the grinding and crunching of stone - and then they _were_ going, at least as fast as Joo Dee's carriage and maybe even faster. A jerk here and there had Li Chen and Yue clutching each other's sleeves, and Sokka—

Sokka was actually clutching his own face, as it happened. "I think I'm going to be sick," he groaned, and then clapped his hand over his mouth. Suki patted him on the shoulder, soliticious, and then settled back on her heels to enjoy the ride.

.*.*.*.

"—so, you see, you have no legal or ethical grounds to demand entry to the university in this manner!" Wenhui paused to adjust his hat, which had begun to list a bit sideways, and then clasped his hands together and smiled with great benevolence at the snide man. "Unless you know something I do not and there is in fact a grave disaster occurring on university property, but I should hope that in such a case you would have come with greater haste and been clearer—"

"Shut _up_, you thrice-damned fool!" the snide man roared, with wholly unnecessary force. "Shut up! Is there no power in this world that can stopper your mouth?"

"I am only trying to help you," Wenhui said, affronted. "You were about to make a serious mistake, my friend, in contravention of quite a few more legal precepts than you permitted me to cite—"

"_Enough_," the snide man said, nearly spitting the word; and then he set his feet against the ground in a way Wenhui was exceedingly familiar with, and with a single punch sent what looked like a little stone glove flying between the bars of the university gate.

It caught Wenhui by the throat while he was still gaping helplessly at the snide man—had he not heard a single word Wenhui had said?! And he called _Wenhui_ a fool!—and he tumbled backward, his hat flying off somewhere behind him. Yes, he thought, scrabbling at the glove-hand, it was indeed made of stone; had the snide man had it with him the whole time? Did he carry a sack of pebbles around, or did he exert subtly constant Earthbending upon it, such that it hung in a hand-shape 'til it was needed—or was it perhaps a solid piece? Wenhui could not quite tell with it around his neck—

Somebody had caught him and was helping to hold him up, which was excellent, because he could no longer quite do it for himself. "Professor Zei!" said—oh, yes, that was Wu Shou, whom Li Chen had said would be along shortly to help—

A sharp blow came down on the side of Wenhui's throat, more startling than painful; the force of it was mostly energy, Wenhui realized, and energy that had been directed into the stone hand rather than into Wenhui's tender neck. The hand obediently cracked apart beneath it, and Wenhui sucked in a deliciously deep breath and then coughed.

"Professor," said Wu Shou. "Are you all right?"

Wenhui felt his throat gingerly and chose to nod rather than speak, in case his amateur self-assessment was more optimistic than accurate.

"Good," said Wu Shou, with a somewhat incongruous grimness. "Then you had better get out of the way."

With Wu Shou's hand steady on his shoulder, Wenhui regained his feet—there was still a crowd of students, but they were no longer standing quite so close; they were actually fairly well-organized, lined up in neat rows with a good two-arms-length between them, and all of them were holding a stance that Wenhui recognized.

"My thanks to you, Professor," Wu Shou said, "for the time you gave me to gather our advanced Earthbending classes. We will do our best to make sure you are not crushed; but we wouldn't mind if you chose to make it easy for us."

"Crushed—" Wenhui began, hoarse and slow, and was answered before he could finish the question by a shadow—the shadow of a paving stone, wide and square, that had been hurled at the university gate high enough to skid off the top. The student immediately left of Wenhui stamped a foot into the ground and then leapt, and met the boulder in midair with her fist before it could come down upon their heads.

"Crushed," said Wu Shou, as the boulder sailed back over the gate. "Hopefully the Ministry's grasp on reality is sufficient for them to realize that the death of any student or professor would not go unexamined; but accidents happen. And have happened with intriguing frequency in Ba Sing Se, I am forced to note. They have at least cleared the street, for which we all should be grateful."

"But—"

"You have done your duty, Professor," said Wu Shou, over the sound of stone crunching free of the university wall. "We should not need to defend ourselves much longer; and you will be able to return to your treatises, and search for enlightenment in peace."

Wu Shou did not quite have the right of it, Wenhui thought. The search for enlightenment was not always peaceful; the library of Wan Shi Tong had been vast and beautiful but not especially safe. But it had only been _able_ to kill him—it had not been _intending_ to. The gulf between those things felt wider than Wenhui could have imagined.

Fascinating.

* * *

><p>It was just plain gut-deep <em>satisfying<em>, to clench her fists and shove and have walls move out of her way. Katara thought maybe she was starting to understand Earthbending—and Toph—better than she'd ever expected to; it had been so easy to find the energy in Waterbending, in constant movement, and it had seemed so weird, so _stupid_, to try to look for the same thing inside of stillness. But it was there anyway, it had been there all along, and she felt like she was thrumming with it when they finally reached the gate to the Upper Ring.

The guards were already looking at them, uncertain—they must have made a lot of noise coming up the street on Toph's little wave of road-stone. But they saw Li Chen and their faces cleared, and Katara and Toph didn't even have to punch anything for the gates to start opening.

"If they have not caught us yet," Li Chen said, "there is a little time," and she stepped off their lump of stone and walked through the gates.

They'd only ever seen the Upper Ring through the windows of Joo Dee's carriage, with Joo Dee chatting soothingly away about sculptors and great architects and the importance of continuity; it was weird to just walk through it. Even the stone under their feet felt different from the streets of the Middle Ring: it was smoother, more level, without cracks or pits or even much wear—then again, Katara thought, keeping stone roads in good repair had to be easy if you could get the best Earthbenders in the kingdom to take care of them.

There were Dai Li here and there, but they seemed mostly to be walking or doing small errands, nothing like the patrols that passed through the Middle Ring; Li Chen glanced at their sleeves or their chests and murmured things like "Junior agent," or "Lower sixth rank," as they went by. "They will most likely not have been told," she elaborated once, when Katara began to eye a nearby group nervously. "Long Feng does not share his every doing with all the Dai Li—nor could he, for there are many thousands of agents in the city."

"Awesome," Sokka said. "That's extremely comforting."

Li Chen led them to the king's palace like she walked that way a dozen times a day. There was a grand avenue leading up to the palace gates, another avenue after that one, and the palace grounds themselves would have been a city of their own anywhere except Ba Sing Se; but Li Chen didn't even hesitate. She nodded to the palace guards, and they looked at her and didn't bow—they _knelt_, practically touching their foreheads to the ground.

"I'm starting to think there are a couple more questions you should ask her," Aang murmured in Katara's ear, and Katara couldn't really disagree.

.*.

The guards took them underground, to something that was somewhere in between an elevator and a train, and brought them up inside some kind of entry hall, from underneath a huge fat floor-tile that was shaped like a square inside a circle. Li Chen thanked them quietly and they knelt again, and didn't get up until she'd started to move away.

"Okay, seriously," Sokka said, "who _are_ you?"

"Do you want to see the king," said Li Chen, "or don't you?" She walked to one of four vast green pairs of doors—Katara had no idea how she could tell them apart—and eased one side open gently.

"We do," Katara said quickly, "we do," and she only didn't kick Sokka in the shin because it seemed sort of wrong when they were in a palace.

There was another set of doors, possibly even taller than the first bunch; and Li Chen walked up and pushed them open with a casual hand, like they weren't edged in beaten gold. "Your Highness," she called out—because she had to, the room beyond them was so large.

There were a good dozen columns, as wide around as the biggest trees they'd seen back in the swamp, hung with enormous lanterns that glowed gently green; and they illuminated the entirety of the hall, all the way up to the great gold dais at the far end.

"What? Who's that? There isn't supposed to be anyone petitioning me today, I'm quite sure of it—"

"I promise you, it's worth your time," Li Chen said, and when she turned to beckon them into the hall, Katara could see she was smiling, gentle and wry.

"My time is worth a very great deal, you know."

"I know," Li Chen said, and began to stride up the hall.

"Almost there," said Aang, hovering anxiously by Katara's shoulder. Katara dared a glance at him: he was looking at her encouragingly, and when their gazes caught, he nodded toward the dais.

Katara took a deep breath, and started walking.

She felt dizzyingly small all of a sudden, everything ten times bigger than she was and jade or gilded or both, and Li Chen abruptly a stranger, not someone they'd had breakfast with but someone who got knelt to and told kings what their time was worth. It was absolutely the wrong moment to be afraid, when this was what they'd been working toward and they were finally so close—but she was anyway.

She startled at the touch to her elbow; but Yue just let her startle and then pressed her fingers more firmly into the crook of Katara's arm. "You do not act alone," she murmured.

"She means quit freaking out," Sokka said, over Katara's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'll say," Toph muttered, "your heartbeat's like a herd of rabbit deer—"

"Mm, yes, help some more," Suki said, bright, and Katara turned in time to see Toph stick out her tongue in Suki's general direction.

"You shouldn't do that," Katara said, "we're about to see a king," and she was trying to sound scolding, but she could feel herself smile.

"You're going to be fine," Aang said gently, somewhere overhead, and Katara wanted to look at him except they were almost there, mere paces away from the dais, and she had to stop and bow instead.

She got a look at the king on her way down: in contrast to his fat golden throne, he himself was narrow, spectacled—he looked almost more like the professors at the university than like a king, except for the gold at his waist and throat and the string of jade that looped around his neck.

"Li Chen," said the king. "I wasn't expecting you today. And who have you brought? Some of your students?"

"Not exactly," said Li Chen, "though they are guests of the university. I have the honor of presenting to you the Avatar herself."


	23. The King of Ba Sing Se, Part 1

Getting closer to the end now! And the chapters are all going to be at least this long from here on out; I just hope they're not too boring. Or confusing, for that matter. I've done my best to juggle all the competing plotlines that sprang up in this book—feel free to let me know if I failed. :) Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12: The King of Ba Sing Se<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>"You spend a lot of time down here."<p>

Yin turned at the sound of the voice—not Kishen, she could tell that much, but it was a man. With the light from the hatch behind him and the darkness of the hold before, it was difficult to pick out his face; but after a few more steps, he was at last near enough. "Commander Arun," she said, and inclined her head. "Is it so surprising? They are—impressive."

And they were: filling the upper bay from end to end, their shining faces twice Yin's height. She didn't even know quite what to call them; Zhao had brought tanks to the north, but these were easily four times the size. Plated with metal, to shield all their workings from Earthbent stone. Larger, faster, deadlier—or so they had been described to Yin, and looking at them, she believed it. The technical details of struts and weight and balance were beyond her, but she could imagine that even the best Earthbending force would have some trouble with these. And there were hundreds of them packed aboard the fleet, thousands.

Arun looked at her with narrowed eyes, and then up at the nearest of the towering machines. "And yet you do not look impressed," he said.

Yin glanced at him, and then away. She had grown spoiled, she thought ruefully; she was too used to Kishen, too used to knowing exactly what was being said and not said. What did Arun mean to tell her? That he suspected her of treasonous sentiments? That he, too, looked at the machines and felt something other than awe? "I am sure they will guarantee glorious victory against any army," she said. Which they would, surely, if they were used that way—but Ba Sing Se was a city, not a fort, and somehow Yin doubted that the Princess Azula intended to wait courteously for Ba Chang to marshal its forces.

"I am sure they will help," Arun said. "But for whatever it's worth to you, sir, I would follow you with or without them."

Yin blinked.

Arun was smiling, just a little, as he dipped a small bow. "I'm sure you don't know this, sir," he said, "but I was promoted to my current position from within the fleet."

"You were," Yin said slowly.

"I was," Arun agreed. "I served under a commander who joined Admiral Zhao's fleet before it set sail for the north. I fought in Kanjusuk, and fled from it when the ocean rose against us. And those of us who survived, sir—we remember you."

She raised her eyebrows at him, startled; and he shrugged his shoulders, hands clasped neatly behind his back.

"You saved our lives," he said. "I didn't know the admiral well, but from what I've heard he would have thrown us at that city until he had no ships left to command. But you saved our lives, and I'm grateful for it. And I'd rather have a commanding officer I'm grateful to than a thousand war machines."

"Well," Yin said. "You are in luck, then, as it seems you will have both." She cleared her throat. "I assume you did not come down here just to give me compliments?"

"No, sir," Arun said, and bowed again. "We have been asked to reposition our ships slightly to the north, to permit a small fleet of supply ships to pass safely—they are carrying catapults, cannon, and a significant number of incendiary devices—"

"—and a collision with any one of them would be inadvisable," Yin said.

"Indeed." Arun straightened up and then stepped to one side, gesturing toward the hatch. "After you, sir."

.*.

Kishen was waiting for her in the bridge, orders in hand—or at least the single sheet on which he had written them down, a quickfire notation of lines and dots and circles, as they had been signaled by Firebenders on the flagship.

Yin felt faintly guilty, as she always did, for the way she treated him. In purely practical terms, it was safest to keep him close, when he knew so much about the things she had done—even if it hadn't also been simply pleasant, to have someone there who understood her so well. She cheated her squadron commanders by it, and they surely knew it—but for the first time, she hoped that perhaps they held their peace because they wished to, not because they thought protest would make no difference, or because they feared she would not take it kindly.

"Not a terribly complicated request, sir," he said to her, bowing, "but we thought we had better let you know."

"And you were right," Yin said. "Have someone signal our other ships to clear a path for them—and maintain it until they're well out of the way. I'd rather avoid any accidents."

"As you say, sir," Kishen murmured, and bowed again; and then he headed toward the hatch to do as she had ordered.

Yin took a few steps further into the bridge, until she was close enough to lay a hand against the orders Kishen had scribbled down; she looked at them for a moment, and then out of the bridge, at the water and the ships beyond. Fire rose from the deck a moment later—Kishen had found a bender, then, and was having her orders relayed.

It wouldn't take long, and then he would come back, and if she was very, very lucky, he wouldn't ask her what she'd been doing. She knew she was spending too much time in the hold; she didn't need Kishen raising his eyebrow at her or saying pointed-but-innocuous things about where she'd gone. The explanation she'd been using—simple, easy: a proud Fire Nation commander inspecting her new cargo—was beginning to wear thin. Even the most enthusiastic warmonger could only have found so many angles from which to admire them.

She just—couldn't help it. Her interest in the tanks in her hold was oddly consuming, half revulsion; it was like looking at a bad wound, magnetic in its ugliness. She wasn't quite sure why they bothered her so much—this ship, after all, was at least as much a war machine as those things in the hold. Perhaps it was because the ship was under her command, her control, and the tanks—the tanks were not, the tanks never would be. Someone else would decide what it was they were to be used for—

Someone she could not trust as well as she trusted herself. She almost laughed, thinking it; she had to be at least as power-mad as Zhao, now, if she found herself uncomfortable with everything that was not hers to do with as she pleased. All right, so they were huge and powerful and could crush soldiers beneath their treads; so they would be used against a city instead of a fort or battalion. What of it? Yin had been in the Navy for years, had been in the middle of a war all her life—why should she choose today to be troubled by death?

She'd indulged herself too much: judging Zhao so freely even though he'd been her rightful commander, going further than she ever should have to save first the Avatar and then the moon. There had been a purpose in it, in everything, after Jindao—or that was what she'd told herself, at least, but that purpose had been fulfilled in Kanjusuk, and yet she had not managed to leash herself again. She had stepped forward to help that girl in the plaza, had stepped forward again to stop Zhao; why could she not now step back? What was it that made it so hard for things to go back to the way they had been?

She had joined the Navy for many reasons—for the money, because Mama had needed it, and because she hadn't cared to marry. And, perhaps, because she had begun to see the way the mainlanders in the city looked at her: some of them like she was lesser, others like she was dangerous or could not be trusted. She had told herself that she loved the Fire Nation as well as any of them, that she could serve it as well, that she was as brave and as loyal. She had not thought then that perhaps the Fire Nation did not mean the same thing to those mainlanders that it meant to her.

And then—then Jindao had happened, and she had drawn a line in the sand: she would hold a sword to a man's throat for her nation, but she would not cut; and perhaps a nation that would ask her to cut was not, in the end, a nation worth cutting for—

Kishen's steps came up behind her, with a brief hitch where he had to lift a foot high over the frame of the hatch. She smoothed the paper flat against the table and then turned to face him, and raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

"As you ordered, sir," he said, bowing. "We'll be out of their way shortly, and our ships will maintain their new positions until ordered otherwise." He straightened up and looked at her. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Yes," Yin said briskly, because there was nothing else she could say—not aloud, not with the hatch open, and in any case she could not even explain herself to herself, let alone to Kishen. "Yes, thank you," and perhaps, she thought, perhaps it wasn't even a lie. The moment was coming when she would have to make a choice, she knew that, and this time it wouldn't happen behind a closed door, or while she was alone in the dark, or far away in the frozen north. This time there would be no obfuscation large enough to hide it—she would have to choose in a way she would be able to bear, and bear forever. And it sounded grim when she put it that way; but all she could think was that it would be a relief, to have the thing settled once and for all.

* * *

><p>It was easier to go unnoticed in Ba Sing Se than Azula could have expected. She didn't even have to hide her eyes—people assumed that she was some unlucky west-coast woman's child, that she had fled before the Fire Nation could reclaim her and press her into service.<p>

Which had to mean there were others who had told such a story and had meant it. Azula would have to do something about that once Ba Sing Se was hers. Fleeing from the Fire Nation—fleeing! When they should be grateful even to be considered potential citizens, to be _permitted_ to serve the Fire Lord. Something would have to be done about it.

But not yet.

Patience wasn't something that had ever come naturally to Azula, but that didn't mean she hadn't learned its value. She meant to succeed where dear old Uncle had failed, and in order to do that, she would need to know this city, to understand the way it moved and breathed, to learn the patterns that governed it. Once it had shown her where its heart was, it would be a simple thing to slide the knife in.

But not yet; and until it was time, they were just four more Earth Kingdom peasants, packed into the Lower Ring.

Mai and Samnang had perfected their knife routine, with Ty Lee to exclaim over Mai's skill and collect people's coins—when people did look askance at Mai's yellow gaze and narrow face, Ty Lee's dark eyes and bright smile reassured them. Perhaps it even added something to their performance, to have someone who looked Fire Nation be the one throwing the knives. Whatever the cause, they made enough to eat twice most days; and when they didn't, Azula didn't mind going without. Fasting cleared the head, sharpened the focus—Father had had sages come and teach them how to let freedom from the body's needs make them stronger, and how Azula had loved to learn it, with Zuko complaining in the background of his empty belly! Surely in the end he could never have been heir, even if he hadn't been exiled for his stupidity.

In any case: Azula had no part in their little pantomime. Which was for the best; even her skills were a difficult match to the challenge of smiling gratefully at peasant charity, and it left her free to roam the rooftops during the day and look for—

Look for things exactly like this. Azula squinted—toward the wall where she'd been headed, toward it but not over it, between two buildings: the round hats and green uniforms of Dai Li. She'd learned a little more about them—that they were charged with the preservation of Ba Sing Se, that they took this duty very seriously; but nothing that explained why there were so _many_ of them, why nothing in Ba Sing Se seemed to happen without their overseeing it. She had escaped their notice only by being in the Lower Ring. No doubt they were looking for her, but finding any one person in the Lower Ring was like looking for a single spark amidst a forest fire.

She leapt the gap between her and the next building over—not the one she had been planning to leap to, but it had a good flat roof and she could land with a roll, which made a little less noise than the plain thud of landing squarely. One of the Dai Li was gesticulating to the other, and she couldn't hear them from this far away, but she didn't have to. Something was happening.

A third Dai Li now, one of the women. Azula crossed the roof, huddled low, and from here she could see down the street they were on—there was another handful of Dai Li in the distance, hurrying away toward the Middle Ring gates. A handful, when Azula had never seen more than two or three assigned to the same duty. Even the hurry was unusual; more typically, agents came with stately deliberation to relieve their predecessors, and though Azula had not been able to work out any kind of repeating schedule, no one ever looked surprised or startled.

Except these did. The Dai Li woman reached the other two, frowning, and there was more gesturing and then an exclamation—dismay, Azula thought, even perhaps a little outrage. Something was definitely happening.

Another moment's conference and then the group beneath her split, the two men going one way and the woman another—the woman toward the Middle Ring like the others, and the men away, perhaps to find more of their fellows in the Lower Ring and share whatever news there was to share. Whatever it was they knew, the woman knew it also; and it was easier to ambush one than two.

Azula crouched on the roof a moment longer, thinking, and then swung down by the edge of the eave. Patience was a useful tool; but sometimes opportunities presented themselves with glaring obviousness, and Azula had not gotten where she was by ignoring them when they did.

.*.*.*.

Joo Dee knew her duty. She kept her hands tucked into her sleeves, her face placid; her steps were hurried, perhaps, but not uneven, and no part of her hair or her robes was in disarray. And if she couldn't seem to stop swallowing nervously, well, her robe collar was wide. Probably no one could tell.

She was only sixth rank; the summons that Chang Da Fifth Rank had brought to her and to Chang Da Third Rank were not for her. And she was almost glad for it—oh, she knew her duty and would do it, but the university made her nervous and so did the Grand Secretary, and any day when she could avoid the notice of either was a good day.

The university—part of the city and yet also not, and she had always been told to regard it with caution. The university was a wild tiger bull that the Dai Li had never quite managed to catch by the tail; every now and then they tried, and tended only to come away with a few hairs clutched in their hands. A deadlock at least meant balance, stability, but they could not even manage that. The university was unpredictable, and therefore dangerous.

And the Grand Secretary himself! More of a king to this city than Kuei in every way that mattered, though Joo Dee was not so foolish as to ever say such a thing aloud. Joo Dee _liked_ being sixth rank, liked knowing only as much as she needed to know to do what she was told to do. There was nothing so precious as security, as safety, and the quiet routines of sixth rank were the most enduring security Joo Dee could imagine. Being called into the presence of the Grand Secretary was the furthest thing from routine that there was, and Joo Dee was nothing but grateful that it had never happened to her.

She thought of what Chang Da Fifth Rank had said and swallowed again. The university, the Grand Secretary, _and_ the Avatar—such a confluence of things so far beyond Joo Dee's sixth-rank existence! Eighth rank and below had not been told anything about the Avatar, but Joo Dee knew a little: sixth rank had been alerted that she was in the city, to keep an eye out for her and report sightings outside the university, but not to meddle with her or speak to her under any circumstances. Of course Chang Da Fifth Rank had not mentioned the Avatar specifically, but she was at the university and now so was the Grand Secretary, and what were the odds that was coincidence? Joo Dee should not try to decide; but she could not stop herself from thinking, much as she sometimes wished she could.

She passed the gate to the Middle Ring and kept walking. Chang Da Fifth Rank surely already had assistance in spreading his message; but he had asked whether she could be spared to give him a little more, and the security and stability Joo Dee so valued depended on sixth ranks doing as fifth ranks requested. She reviewed the day's postings in her mind—if she remembered rightly, there should be at least one Chang Da Third Rank posted two streets over, investigating an accusation of seditious conduct. Serious, no doubt, to demand a third-rank agent; but her message was more serious still. Seditious conduct was dangerous, but would still be there tomorrow. Depending on what had happened, the same could not necessarily be said of the university, the Grand Secretary, or the Avatar.

Joo Dee crossed the street and began to cut through an alley—it was not an unfamiliar route, for she had been posted to the Lower Ring many times, and she was halfway through when something happened that had never happened before in all her time as an agent of the Ministry: someone laid hands on her.

At first she thought the girl had tripped, had not looked where she was going and had grabbed Joo Dee in an effort to save her balance, and she told herself there was no reason not to be kind about it. Surely the girl would apologize once she realized what she had done. Joo Dee caught at the girl's elbows to help her, and it was then that she found the girl was not off-balance at all.

The girl looked up, then, and it was not her yellow eyes but the look in them that made Joo Dee go still in the girl's hands. The girl was looking at Joo Dee like she was a weasel fox and Joo Dee a rabbit dove; and Joo Dee went limp in her grip as though it were true, heart pounding in her chest, and tried to think.

Joo Dee did not, in truth, _want_ to rise above sixth rank, but she knew well that whatever she did she would never be higher than fourth, because one of the most valued cultural traditions of Ba Chang was closed to her: she could not Earthbend. So she let the girl shove her up against the wall and did nothing; and perhaps it was even for the best. An Earthbender might through reflex alone have cracked a paving stone over the girl's head, unless the girl were a bender, too—might have smashed her skull over half the street, and never have known what it was she had intended to do. But if this girl had ambushed one of the Dai Li on purpose, and wanted something from her, surely there was much Joo Dee could learn by letting her demand it. Did she plot against the Dai Li, or against the king, or against the city? Was she part of a group or did she act alone? What did she hope to accomplish? Surely, if she did not kill Joo Dee, then Joo Dee would walk away from this knowing more than she had before.

Her pulse was thunder, her hands were shaking; but Joo Dee knew her duty.

"Cry out and I will kill you," the girl said, and Joo Dee nodded to show that she understood.

"I will not cry out," she whispered, and as if to reward her, the girl gentled her grip on Joo Dee's arms.

"Good," the girl said, patronizing and pleased at once. "Those men, who spoke to you in the street—what did they tell you?"

She had been watching them: watching the Dai Li, who were the city's watchers. Joo Dee wondered whether there was a file yet amongst those in the archives for her—whether even at this moment another agent watched the girl, completing the circle. Or would have watched her, perhaps, except for that summons to the university; and there was a kind of irony in it, Joo Dee thought, that the summons she inquired after was the same thing that had probably saved her from immediate arrest.

"Employees of the Ministry of Cultural Authority of third rank or higher," Joo Dee told her, "are urgently needed at the University of Ba Sing Se." What would she do with the knowledge? What _could_ she do with it, she and whoever she did or did not have with her, against the very best the Dai Li have, all gathered in the same place? If she had tried, she could not have picked a message to wring from Joo Dee that Joo Dee would mind giving her _less_ than this one.

The girl's eyes narrowed. "The University of Ba Sing Se," she repeated, slow. "And what's at the university that could possibly require their presence?"

"The message said nothing—"

"I'm not asking about the message," the girl said, sweetly and delicately vicious in her enunciation. "It wasn't in the message because you already know, don't you?"

Joo Dee hesitated—a breath, no longer. Half the Middle Ring could tell this girl what Joo Dee could tell her, and the Grand Secretary and the three highest ranks of Dai Li were all at the university at this moment. "The Avatar," Joo Dee said. "The Avatar is at the university, or so I have been told."

The girl looked thoughtful. "Still here, then," she said, more to herself than to Joo Dee; and then her gaze and attention returned to Joo Dee, inescapable, Joo Dee once again the rabbit dove. "And what could the Ministry of Cultural Authority possibly have to do with the Avatar?"

"I do not know," Joo Dee said, and then, when the girl's mouth flattened, "I do _not_. I have not been told that. Only—"

"Only what?" the girl said.

"Only that it must be serious," Joo Dee said. "For so many to be called, so many of so high a rank—the security of the city must be at stake. The preservation and protection of Ba Sing Se are paramount."

"Paramount," the girl repeated, narrowing her eyes again. "Paramount. Well." Her hands tightened briefly around Joo Dee's arms. "You've given me something interesting, and I like that; and I suppose it doesn't matter if you tell them you saw me, not really. So you might as well live." She said it easily, carelessly, as though if she had preferred to have Joo Dee dead then Joo Dee would be dead; and the girl would have walked away from Joo Dee's body as lightly as she was walking away now and leaving Joo Dee to stare after her.

Joo Dee swallowed, and watched the girl's back until she had gone round the corner. There was Chang Da Third Rank to find, now, and others to find after; plenty of time to lodge an incident report later. Whatever had happened at the university mattered more, in this moment, than a girl with yellow eyes in the Lower Ring who was probably being watched anyway. A fifth rank had told Joo Dee what to do, and Joo Dee would do it.

She swallowed again and straightened, checked her hair, tucked her hands into her sleeves, and then began to walk, reciting to herself in her head everything the girl had said. When she did make her report, best that it be as complete as possible.

* * *

><p>"The Avatar?" said the king, and leaned forward in his golden throne. "Really?" He narrowed his eyes, speculative, and looked Katara up and down. "I'd heard you'd come back, but people have been saying that kind of thing for years now, and nothing ever came of it before."<p>

Katara swallowed, not sure how exactly to disagree with a king—probably there were rules about it, she thought, because there were rules about everything around here, but the closest thing to a king she'd known for a long time had been Father, and Gran-Gran's stories had included quite a lot of kings but not any guidelines about how to argue with them.

But Li Chen spoke before Katara had time to open her mouth. "Really," she said, and then turned and motioned to the side.

Katara hadn't realized there was anyone there, but out of the shadows came a girl dressed all in green, head lowered, and in her hands was a shallow basin of water—for the king to wash his hands in, maybe, or cool his face? Or soak his feet, for all Katara knew.

Li Chen gave Katara a tiny nod, and Katara could guess what she meant by it; a basic stance and a flowing motion of Katara's hands, and the water swirled up and out of the basin, wound around the king's shoulders without touching him, and then settled back where it had come from with only the slightest splash.

It wasn't all that difficult, but Katara concentrated hard—the last thing she wanted to do was drop a bunch of water on the king of Ba Sing Se. The sound of a clap startled her, and she almost yanked the water up and into a blade; but it was just the king, beaming with childish delight and applauding. "Oh, marvelous, marvelous," he said, "really excellent! The forty-third king of Ba Chang used to keep a few Waterbenders at court, you know—I can see why. What a delightful trick."

It was such an odd thing to say that Katara almost laughed—all the time she'd spent struggling to master Waterbending, fighting with Fire Nation troops and Master Pakku and herself, and now it was a delightful trick! But she swallowed it down and smiled instead. "Thank you, Your Highness—"

"But of course you're a Waterbender," the king said, "just look at you. I suppose the real question is whether you can bend anything else, hmm?"

Katara eyed him, him and his golden throne and the dais—it was a lot, but then the boulder at the Serpent's Pass had been a lot, the paving stones had been a lot, and it wasn't as though she had to move it very far. She squared herself up, took a deep breath, and _shoved_, and was answered with the rumble and scrape of stone; and when she looked up again, the king had a hand on the arm of his throne and another on his hat, and was a pace further away.

Belatedly, it occurred to Katara that he might not take kindly to her pushing his throne around—but he stared at her with round eyes for a moment and then abruptly grinned. "Well!" he said. "I suppose that answers that!"

.*.*.*.

The Avatar herself—it was like a story, one of those things that had happened all the time to the legendary kings of the past. And now it was happening to him! Delightful. Perhaps they could even hold a feast in her honor; that was the sort of thing the kings of the past had done for the Avatar, wasn't it? Long Feng would know, Kuei thought. Kuei would have to get him to arrange something suitably impressive.

Kuei's personal guardsmen were out in front of the door—or the soldiers who got called that, anyway, though Long Feng had long since rearranged matters. Kuei's personal guards weren't all that personal, and never had been; the job of protecting Kuei directly went to handpicked Dai Li, who—

Kuei stopped in the middle of raising a hand to motion to one of them. That's right, they weren't there. An urgent summons had arrived for Dai Li above third rank who were not otherwise occupied, not long before Li Chen had come in—at the time, Kuei had had no audiences scheduled and had not expected anyone, so he had dismissed them. Long Feng hated it when he did that, and was probably going to make a lot of icy-smooth remarks about Kuei's safety later; but Kuei would remind him who exactly was king here, and he would subside, as he always did.

Well—Kuei would just have to remember to tell Long Feng himself, then.

"Your Highness," said the Avatar, "we've come a very long way to see you—"

"Have you?" Kuei said, feeling rather tickled—the Avatar, come a long way to see him! Perhaps he ought to have someone assigned to get the details of the story out of her, commemorate it somehow. An interrelated set of poems, perhaps, that could be distributed to the tea houses of the Upper Ring—

"Yes," the Avatar said, "because there's something important we have to tell you."

Kuei blinked at her. "Then why didn't you come any sooner?" he said.

The boy next to the Avatar made a funny sort of noise—the Avatar slapped him on the back a couple of times right after, smiling up at Kuei while she did it, so it must have been a cough. "We tried," the Avatar said. "We've been trying for days, but we couldn't get an audience."

Kuei hadn't had _that_ many audiences of late—of course he didn't see _everyone_ who came asking to speak to the king, that would have been quite impossible, but he couldn't imagine why the Avatar would not have been fitted in _somewhere_. Perhaps—perhaps they simply hadn't inquired through the right channels. Not even the Avatar would be admitted into Kuei's presence if she came up and asked at the gate like a beggar; but no doubt Long Feng would have a few words to say to whatever minor official had turned her away! "Well," he said aloud, "there must have been some mistake, I expect. You should have demanded to see the Grand Secretary—"

"We _did_ see the Grand Secretary!" cried a girl—not the Avatar, one of the others; very short, Kuei thought, though she did not look too much younger than the Avatar. "We did—he wasn't any help at all—"

"Toph," said another girl, very calmly—the white-haired one, this time—and then, to Kuei, with half a bow: "We met with the Grand Secretary several times, Your Highness, and he was unable to assist us."

The short girl snorted. "_Unable_. He didn't want to! He'd have been handing us excuses until the Fire Nation set Ba Sing Se on fire—"

Kuei hadn't been able to decide whether to be confused or outraged, but that was simply too much. He frowned, which was usually enough to make people start bowing and apologizing all by itself, and said loudly, "Surely you would not dare accuse the Grand Secretary of deliberately failing in his duties!"

"Oh, wouldn't I?" the short girl snapped; but before Kuei could gather the breath to shout an order for her removal, a throat was carefully and deliberately cleared.

Li Chen, of course—Kuei had almost forgotten she was there. She'd been standing off to the side, half in shadow; now she moved forward and bowed low. She'd always known just when to step into an argument, Kuei thought.

"I am certain the Avatar and her companions accord all due respect to the Grand Secretary," Li Chen said, calm, "and to his extensive history of service to the throne of Ba Chang as your Highness's trusted advisor."

By the looks on their faces, the Avatar and her companions were a bit less certain about this than Li Chen; but they didn't disagree aloud, so perhaps it was true enough.

"This, no doubt, is why she was so surprised to have her requests to see you be denied," Li Chen continued, "when the information she wishes to share with Your Highness is potentially vital to the welfare of Ba Sing Se, Ba Chang as a whole, and, indeed, all the Earth Kingdoms."

Kuei looked at her, startled. Unlike the Avatar, Li Chen was blessed with an impenetrable face and always had been. She looked as composed and distant now as she had when she was eight and had just stolen half Kuei's moon cake; and she met his gaze steadily. But she would not have brought the Avatar here if she had not seen some merit in the girl's case—merit beyond frustrating Long Feng, because she did not like Long Feng and never had, but she would not waste Kuei's time with something so petty. She knew better.

Kuei sighed. By all rights, he ought to have the short girl marched out for speaking to him in such a manner—and the rest of them, for letting her. But he supposed he could at least listen to what they had been waiting so long to tell him. He could always have them tossed out of the palace _after_, couldn't he?

"All right," he said, and spread a hand invitingly. "What is it, then?"

.*.*.*.

When Katara was done explaining—and she looked forward to the day when she would never have to say the word "eclipse" to anyone ever again, she really did—there was silence. The king had listened without interrupting; without much reaction at all, really, except the slow climb of his eyebrows. He'd looked a little startled, a little thoughtful, when she'd explained about how it would take away Firebending—about how it had before, in the early days of the war. But that was all.

"Well," the king said at last, sitting back. "Academically interesting, I suppose."

"_Academically_—" Toph spat, but the king didn't let her finish.

"Oh, certainly this information would have great value to a kingdom at war with the Fire Nation," the king said. "But as I am sure you have been told, Ba Chang is not part of any such conflict, and has not been for years. Have you considered the idea that the Grand Secretary refused you as much for your sake as for mine? Because your time has been as thoroughly wasted, for the sake of this irrelevant—"

"It's not _irrelevant_," Katara said, possibly a bit more loudly than she should have. Aang had been hovering at her shoulder the whole time, telling her to be patient, to be calm, to make sure not to yell the way Toph had—she winced now, expecting him to scold her, but when she risked a glance, he was frowning at the king instead of at her, looking almost bewildered.

"How can he not care?" Aang murmured, sounding lost; and it was for the best that Katara couldn't answer, because she had no idea what to say.

Even before it had somehow become up to her to bring it to an end, the Hundred-Year War had always, always been there, the answer to every question she'd ever asked as a child. _Where has everybody gone? Why is the village so small? Why am I the only one who can Waterbend? Why won't the southern raiders leave us alone?_ She'd spent what felt like half her life imagining what it might be like when the war was finally over, but the truth was that she had no idea, because it had been there as long as she'd been alive—as long as Mother had been alive, as long as Gran-Gran had. There was nothing the war didn't touch, nothing that wasn't part of it or caused by it or not done because of it. She might as well have tried to imagine what it would be like if there were no such thing as ice.

But Li Chen, impossibly, seemed to have told the truth: in this city, the war did not matter. To this king—to this king, shut away on his golden throne in his gleaming palace, it meant nothing at all; the Waterbending skill that Katara had crossed half the world to get was a _delightful trick_, and now the eclipse that could end the war forever was _academically interesting_. In that moment, the gulf between the king and Katara, between him and Aang—even between him and every Fire Nation soldier they'd ever fought, who had at the absolute least known and cared that there was a war, even if they were on the wrong side of it—seemed uncrossable, for all that only a few paces separated them.

"It's not irrelevant," Katara said again, because she didn't know what else to do except try. "It's not irrelevant at all—you could win this war for real, forever, for the sake of everybody out there who's dying over it right now! Doesn't that _matter_ to you? Don't you care about _anything_ but yourself?"

The king straightened in his throne, and now he wasn't just frowning but outright scowling. "The kingdom of Ba Chang has already won its war, girl, and if other kingdoms cannot manage the same feat, that is no fault of mine. I don't know what makes you think you are entitled to speak to me in this manner—"

As if Katara's _rudeness_ were the real problem! Katara wanted fiercely to hit him, or maybe to cry; but before she could do either, someone coughed.

The king's mouth went flat, and he shot a glance sideways. "You have something to contribute?" he said sourly.

"I beg Your Highness's pardon," said Li Chen, very mildly, and bowed again. "I only thought I might express my gratitude that the Avatar takes her responsibilities seriously—so seriously that she is too deeply moved by them to treat Your Highness with the proper decorum."

"Oh, is that it," said the king, giving her a flat look.

"The Grand Secretary himself has sometimes spoken too hastily to Your Highness," Li Chen said, "when he feels the preservation and protection of the city is at stake; and the Avatar is responsible for the preservation and protection of all the world. Surely a duty as weighty as that demands our understanding and respect."

Katara stared at her, bewildered. Li Chen _hated_ the Dai Li, she'd as good as said so at the university, and by her account—which was seeming more accurate every moment—it was their fault that the war was ignored in Ba Sing Se. And yet here she was, blithely comparing Katara to them? To Long Feng himself, even—

The king huffed out a breath and sat back. "Yes, all right," he said, sounding vaguely sulky. "She still shouldn't have yelled at me."

"No," Li Chen agreed gently, "but perhaps Your Highness might consider extending a little royal magnanimity to the Avatar?"

"You're very demanding," the king said, sighing—but he sounded annoyed instead of angry, and when he looked at Katara again, even the worst of the annoyance faded. "I don't mean to be—unkind, Avatar; but the war has been over in Ba Sing Se for seven years. I receive reports daily from the Grand Secretary, and I can assure you that my citizens are quite safe. My responsibilities end at the borders of Ba Chang, and Ba Chang is not at war."

Daily reports from Long Feng—Katara wondered grimly what they said, to have the king so thoroughly convinced that the war had no consequences for his kingdom. Presumably they glossed over the flood of refugees trying to cross the North Yellow Sea, the terrified people that had been crowded into the ferry station at the border, the Fire Nation ships that were swarming in the South Yellow Sea. She couldn't use any of that to argue with him, because he wouldn't believe it for a moment if Long Feng had told him something else. She had to find another way to convince him—at least to start with, and if she could only get him on her side then perhaps it would be easier to get him to listen to the rest.

"And how long do you think that'll be true, if the rest of the Earth Kingdoms fall? Will the Fire Lord be satisfied with the rest of the world, and leave Ba Chang alone?"

"We've proven he cannot defeat us," the king said firmly.

Suki stepped forward, then, brushing a reassuring hand against Katara's wrist before she spoke. "And when he has five times as many soldiers," she said, "when he's captured legions of Earthbenders to tear down your walls, then how will you stop him? When you've let him topple every other kingdom, one by one, to save yourselves—how will you stop him, when you're the only ones left standing?"

The king was frowning again, but not angrily—thoughtfully. "Is this why you brought them?" he said to Li Chen, looking at neither her nor Suki but at Katara. "You think they're right?"

Li Chen was silent for a moment, and then said, quiet, "I believe Your Highness's own father favored the notion that what affected one Earth Kingdom affected all—that the kingdoms were strongest when they stood as one."

"You'd know better than I would," the king murmured. "Everybody says he loved talking to you about that kind of thing."

Li Chen had been keeping her eyes politely cast down, but at that, she looked up at the king, seeming almost—startled?

The king wasn't looking at her, though. He was still gazing consideringly at Katara. "So you want me to go to war, and you want me to win; and you really think the Grand Secretary was trying to keep you from telling me this," he said.

"I don't know," Katara admitted. "We were waiting at the university for days, and he kept telling us we couldn't see you. And then we met Li Chen yesterday, and now here we are."

"But, look," Sokka said, at her shoulder, "you don't have to take our word for it. Ask him yourself—he was at the university when we left."

The king blinked. "He was?"

"Him and a couple battalions of Dai Li," Sokka amended. "We didn't really think they were there to throw us a party, but we didn't stick around long enough to ask."

The king hesitated, tapping one silk-shod toe against the dais. "I've—never been to the Middle Ring," he admitted.

"First time for everything," Toph said, spreading her hands. "And if it turns out we're crazy liars, you can still have us arrested."

"Although we'd kind of rather you didn't," Sokka added.

The king glanced at Li Chen. "The Grand Secretary won't like it," he said. "He doesn't even like it when I go walking in the gardens without an escort, never mind the Middle Ring."

"The Grand Secretary does as he thinks is best," Li Chen said, and then, with an artful shrug: "But you are the king."

"Yes," the king said slowly. "Yes, I am. All right," and he stood with sudden energy and clapped his hands together, eyes bright behind his spectacles, abruptly boyish in his excitement. "All right," and then, almost confidingly: "I've always rather wanted to see the university."

.*.*.*.

It was oddly thrilling, to come to the palace gate and for once actually pass it. Kuei had been outside the palace buildings before, of course, to walk in the gardens and the like—to sit by the lake of an evening and listen to music, to see festival fireworks light up the sky. But never alone; and never, he was beginning to realize, by nothing but his own choosing. The musicians were invited, and Kuei was told when it was time to go and hear them; the gardens were in bloom, and Kuei was told when it was time to go and look at them. Everything pre-arranged—and he had not minded it, for the musicians were always skilled and the gardens were always beautiful, but it made this trip feel very different indeed.

The guards were almost certainly startled, but they pressed their foreheads to the ground as they ought and then opened the great stone gate for him, and he stepped out into the avenue. Not so very different, he thought, looking around—but then he was only an armslength from the gate. And they wanted to take him out of the Upper Ring entirely! What did the Middle Ring look like? What did it _smell_ like? ... How did you even get there?

He glanced at Li Chen to find her looking back at him with an odd little smile on her face—fond, he thought, and yet something in her gaze was somehow assessing, taking his measure. He talked to her more often than he talked to just about anyone, except perhaps the Grand Secretary and one or two other advisors; but now he caught himself thinking that for all the banquets, all the lunches, in some ways they barely knew each other at all. And if he had said such a thing aloud at any of those banquets, Long Feng would have told him he was being foolish—and Li Chen would have stayed silent, lowered her eyes, or maybe changed the subject; but, Kuei thought, that didn't mean she wouldn't have known what he meant.

"If Your Highness will give us permission," said the Avatar, bowing, "we might be able to get you there a little faster?"

"Oh?" Kuei said. "How's that?"

"Well," the Avatar said, and then looked at the short girl; and together they moved their hands and pulled the ground up underneath them—all of them, Kuei included.

"Goodness," Kuei said, grabbing Li Chen's arm and putting the other hand to his hat. The Avatar did seem to like throwing people off balance. "... Now what?"

"Brace yourself," the short girl told him, not unkindly; and then she nodded to the Avatar and began to move her arms. Suddenly the palace moved away, the gate, the guards, as the stone of the street rumbled beneath them—except it was not they who moved, but Kuei. He kept his grip on Li Chen so that he would not fall, and turned around, delighted, to watch himself leave them all behind.

* * *

><p>It was an easy job, really, guarding the gate to the Upper Ring. That was why Qiang Luo liked it. The worst they ever got was somebody who didn't have all their papers in order, and all that meant was you held them until the Dai Li came around to get them and then it wasn't your problem anymore. Qiang Luo kept his weapons sharp because they looked better that way, not because he was ever planning to use them. Sure, he'd been required to swear he'd give his life in defense of the security of the Upper Ring, but everybody was supposed to say the words; you never actually <em>had<em> to.

He was standing at attention when the noise started—he was always standing at attention, he stood at attention all day. And "started" wasn't quite the word; really, it was that the noise had already started somewhere much further away, and was only just now coming close enough for Qiang Luo to hear it.

It sounded sort of like a train, at first, so Qiang Luo didn't worry about it. There were trains all the time. This one sounded a little different, not coming from the same direction as any of the day's usual trains; but maybe some new track had been put up or something. Nobody told Qiang Luo things like that. Things like that weren't Qiang Luo's job.

But the noise got louder, rumblier, and as it did, Qiang Luo began to realize that he could not only hear it but was _feeling_ it, a trembling that grew underneath his feet like an earthquake.

He darted a glance at Hei Huang, beside him: Hei Huang was looking straight ahead out of his helmet, but Qiang Luo could tell that he was shifting his weight uncertainly.

The trembling was turning into outright shaking, the noise building to a roar—was there some kind of _rockslide_ coming at them? What _was_ it? It wasn't on the Middle Ring side of the wall—

It was like getting punched in the face with pure sound: the wall burst open with a tremendous cracking of rock. Not at the gate, or Qiang Luo would probably have been flattened, but next to it, a few paces beyond where Hei Huang had been thrown to the ground—the stone of the wall just _crunched_ out of the way, and something came hurtling through the gap it left behind, though Qiang Luo was too busy trying to scramble away on his hands and knees to see exactly what.

"Sorry!" someone yelled through the din. "We'll come back and fix that!"

Qiang Luo found the wall with his hands—still standing, over here—and then paused, blinking through the dust. What?

He pushed himself to his feet unsteadily; he'd dropped his spear to catch himself, it had rolled away somewhere, but he groped for his sword. He'd sworn to defend the security of the Upper Ring from the Middle Ring—but the security of the Middle Ring from the Upper? Was he supposed to have worried about that? "Stop," he said to the thing, which was even now grinding on away from him; and then he had to clear his throat, because it had come out unintelligible with all the dust in his mouth. "Stop, you—you can't—you have to—in the king's name—"

"It's all right!" drifted back to him, distant, over the rumbling of stone. "I _am_ the king!" And then—a whoop?

Qiang Luo stared helplessly after the thing, whatever it had been—some kind of new ground train? An ostrich-horse-less carriage?—and then gave in and quit trying to draw his sword. Hei Huang was still behind him in the dust and rubble somewhere, judging by all that coughing; and if somebody was going to catch that thing and figure out what the hell was going on, it wasn't going to be Qiang Luo.

* * *

><p>The Middle Ring was glorious, although it did go by rather quickly—there were <em>so many<em> people, and they looked startlingly and fascinatingly _different_ from one another. There! An old man—really and truly _old_, gnarled and bent, leaning heavily on a staff. And there: a woman, with her hair pinned up but no combs, no beads, and she was leading her children by the hand—by the _hand_, herself, no servants to carry them, and all of them walking instead of riding in palanquins or inside a carriage. There was still a servant behind her, Kuei thought, that plainly-dressed girl with the basket; but no guards, no retinue, and the silks she wore were embroidered prettily enough but not with gold or silver, nor beaded with jades or pearls.

Another moment and they were gone, left behind, the woman having only just begun to gape at the moving portion of street that had flown past her—and then Kuei had to grab for Li Chen again as they rounded a tight corner.

He was looking forward to seeing what this new street held, except then an odd sound captured his attention: a crash or thud, very loud but still rather far away. "What was that?" Kuei shouted over the wind, and Li Chen looked at him and then into the distance ahead of them.

She had opened her mouth to answer when the sound came again, louder—twice, three times, and in the direction Li Chen had turned to look in, Kuei could see something moving. A building, he thought inanely, because of course it wasn't a building, it couldn't be; a piece of stone, then, and a large one at that. There were walls ahead of them—perhaps a construction project? Except Kuei knew of no project of such a size taking place in the Middle Ring—

The people in the first few streets had been carrying on about their business, like the old man, and the woman with her children; but now there was almost no one to be seen. A young man, down an alley—but he was running back the way they'd come, and he was so busy running that he paid Kuei and the Avatar and their moving pavilion of street-stone no mind at all.

But ahead of them, there were people. A lot of people, Kuei thought—quite a lot. Green-robed, all of them, and surrounding that big wall, which went around—was _that_ the university?

Kuei realized what he was seeing a moment before a whole group of Dai Li at once set their feet against the ground and punched, and a chunk of the university wall came loose and rose into the air. This was—what _was_ this?! Kuei knew of no complaint raised against the university, nor of any reason Long Feng would not have told him if there were one; and Li Chen and Long Feng did not like each other, but Li Chen had never gone and started knocking down the Ministry of Cultural Authority's main building. Surely Long Feng could explain his conduct, if Kuei only gave him the chance—but Kuei could not imagine how, and until some kind of explanation was given—

"Put it back," he shouted to the Avatar and the short girl. "Put it back!"

The Dai Li were not prepared for it in the least—they had braced their arms and their energy against the weight of all that stone, but not against the efforts of other Earthbenders. The Avatar and the short girl brought their street-chunk to a halt, and then, both at once, raised their fists into the air and then slammed them down. The piece of wall followed, dropping back into place with a sound like the closing of some mountainous book; and the Dai Li, turned, startled—first the ten who had raised it, and then their fellows, and all of them looked outraged. As though the Avatar were the one with the explaining to do!

Well, the Avatar did have some explaining to do. But less urgently.

"You—" Kuei said, and then stopped, one foot suspended over the edge of the chunk of street-stone.

"Avatar, if you would," Li Chen said quickly.

"Oh—oh, of course," said the Avatar, and lowered them all down to ground level.

Kuei waited until the ground had finished settling underneath him, and then completed the dignified and kingly stride he had been about to make. "You will stand down," he said, tone properly imperious, "by the order of _your king_," and the Dai Li seemed abruptly to remember themselves, and all bowed at once.

"A thousand apologies, Your Highness," said one of the nearby ones, quickly. "We act under orders from the Grand Secretary—"

"Of course you do," Kuei said. "And where exactly is he?"

As if Long Feng had heard him, a green-robed figure rounded the corner at that exact moment—and by the look on Long Feng's face, he was about to demand to know why the Dai Li had stopped what they were doing. Kuei could not remember a time when Long Feng _hadn't_ seemed to know everything; it was almost wickedly satisfying to see his expression flicker from anger to sheer surprise.

"Your Highness—you should not have come into the Middle Ring without an escort—"

"Ah, but I have an escort," Kuei said. "The Avatar herself! A very interesting girl. I am sure there is an excellent explanation for whatever is going on here—"

"Of course, Your Highness—"

"—but until I have heard it, your agents must be called off," Kuei concluded; for there were still thuds and rumbles drifting up from other portions of the university walls.

"Of course, Your Highness," Long Feng said again, bowing deeply, and with a murmur he dispatched the three Dai Li nearest him before turning back to Kuei. "But surely this conversation would be better continued within the safety of the palace walls?"

"There are a hundred Dai Li right here," Kuei said. "Can there be anywhere safer?"

"Certainly not, Your Highness," Long Feng said, gracious as was his habit; and, after all, Kuei was quite right.

Kuei cleared his throat, lifted his chin, and squared his shoulders. He was further from his throne and his palace than he had ever been before, and yet he had rarely felt himself to be so wholly in charge—_really_ in charge, making things happen, not just choosing between options given to him or approving decisions someone else had already made. Probably it was just because Long Feng had so clearly not expected them, and so for a moment had not been in control; soon he would begin to explain himself, and whatever he said would be obvious and wise and Kuei would agree with it, and everything would go back to normal. But for the moment—it was not an unpleasant feeling.

"Now," he said. "What's all this about?"


	24. The King of Ba Sing Se, Part 2

"Surely you have heard by now, Your Highness," Long Feng said, "that the Avatar hoped to speak to you," because of course he would start by telling Kuei the same story he had told at the university gates—why give Katara anything solid to object to? Sometimes Li Chen wished Long Feng were a less careful man.

"I have," Kuei said.

"She was brought to me by one of my agents. Your Highness's time is of such great value that her request could not be granted immediately," and he sounded so apologetic that Li Chen might almost have believed it if she had not known better. "But I came to the university today, with a small retinue, to tell her that an audience could at last be granted to her."

"And broke the door down, figuratively speaking," Kuei observed—with more curiosity than malice, but that he had said it at all was more than Li Chen might have expected.

"Of course I deeply regret all damage caused to the university's buildings and grounds," Long Feng said, bowing deeply in Li Chen's direction. "When we were refused entry to the campus, we became concerned for the Avatar's safety—and perhaps we did act too rashly, for I see now that our concerns were without foundation. I hope President Jian will accept my humble offer to have some of my agents assist in the repairs?"

And hand him an excuse to have Dai Li wandering around the university grounds? Did he truly think so little of her ability to strategize? Even an introductory-level political history student would have seen that for the trap it was.

Li Chen smiled at him extra blithely, and made a show of inspecting the nearby wall—Katara and the Bei Fong girl had dropped it perhaps a handswidth out of its original position, but no further, and that would not be difficult to fix. "The damage does not look so bad as all that," she said; _because you are in fact hopelessly ineffective, for all your resources_, she did not say, though she hoped Long Feng heard it anyway. "Though of course this is the west wall, and the university's main gate is in the east—and if you did not try that first, I am perhaps less surprised that you were unable to get in."

She said it lightly, amiably, and Kuei laughed; perhaps it was a trick of the light, but she thought she saw a muscle in Long Feng's jaw twitch.

"Of course we approached the main gate—"

"Where no doubt the upper-level Earthbending classes were holding their afternoon practice!" Li Chen exclaimed. "I hope they did not cause you any inconvenience."

He had no trouble interpreting that—he stared at her grimly for a long moment and then turned his gaze back to Kuei and inclined his head. "There was a great deal of confusion," he said, "and I cannot profess to any certainty as to who might have thrown the first stone. But I do not believe anyone was hurt, and it looks as though the Avatar has achieved her audience, so perhaps it has all ended well."

"I expect you are right," Kuei said, agreeable; and then, satisfyingly: "I suppose I will hear it from Li Chen if any of the students were injured."

Long Feng's eyes flicked back to her, and for a moment he seemed to be hoping to turn himself into a Firebender through sheer force of will. "I suppose so," he said, very flat.

Kuei clapped his hands and then rubbed them together briskly. "And you have reminded me of something!" he said. "The Avatar tells me things are quite serious in some of the other Earth Kingdoms, and that perhaps we might have a chance at ending the war entirely—not just for ourselves, you see. That perhaps it's important that we do something about it. And that perhaps you do not agree; perhaps you even meant to keep her from saying so to me. Of course you've said you came to the university to fetch her," he added confidingly, "and I'm sure that is so—but I will say that I do not recall being told that I should have so important an audience session today. Or that she wished to see me at all; or that she was in the city, for that matter."

Li Chen had sometimes wished that Kuei were of a more perceptive nature; but in this moment there was no better weapon than such blithely honest curiosity, and Long Feng could not through implication intimidate or persuade a king who thought everyone said exactly what they meant.

"You were not told of the audience for Your Highness's own safety," Long Feng said, as though it were the obvious answer. "The Avatar and Your Highness in the same room might well present a tempting target—"

"To whom?" Li Chen said, in tones of casual interest. "Surely you are not suggesting that the Fire Nation does not consider Ba Chang a neutral and therefore inviolable party."

"To anyone," Long Feng said firmly, "anyone who wishes Your Highness's august rule were ended. Your Highness no doubt recalls my reports regarding certain anarchist groups operating within the city—we have the matter well in hand, of course, but one can never be too careful."

"I suppose not," Kuei agreed, "but I cannot imagine why that would have stopped you from including her presence in the city in one of your reports. Bit of an oversight, hmm?"

He said this last chidingly, tone gently scolding, and he clucked his tongue after—it was only by a great effort of will, Li Chen thought, that Long Feng kept from grinding his teeth, and she lifted a hand briefly to cover her mouth so that Kuei would not ask her why she was smiling.

"Well! Whether you meant to bring her to me or not," Kuei said, dismissing both possibilities with a wave of his hand, "she has come, and told me what she meant to tell me; and that's the real matter at hand. Tell me, Long Feng: is the Avatar wrong about this war? If the rest of the Earth Kingdoms topple around us, can we be certain of our continued safety? I have always left these kinds of policy decisions to your discretion, and have had no reason to regret it—but it is an interesting question, isn't it?"

Long Feng inclined his head to Kuei, and his posture was nothing but respectful; but he fixed the Avatar with a look of incredible venom, mixed with something not unlike disdain. "The Avatar is to be commended for her conviction," he said. "But she is a girl, Your Highness, from whatever is left of the tribes of the southern ice—not only must she undoubtedly fail to understand the complexities of governing a kingdom, she also surely has her own reasons for wishing so fervently to have Your Highness's assistance in defeating the great enemy of her people. She tells you the Fire Nation will not leave us in peace because she does not want us to leave the Fire Nation in peace—"

"That's not true!" Sokka shouted—because Katara hadn't, Li Chen thought. He was standing at Katara's shoulder, one hand on her arm, looking outraged; and Katara—

Katara was grim and silent beside him, staring at Long Feng like the reason she did not dare move was because if she let herself, she would strangle him.

"That's not true," Sokka said again. "Your Highness—we're telling you the Fire Nation won't leave you in peace because it's _true_. There are people fleeing the western coast right now, trying to get to Ba Sing Se any way they can—there are Fire Navy battleships in the Yellow Seas—"

"Your Highness, this boy is—"

"Battleships?" Kuei said. "_Battleships_?" and it was the wrong moment for it, but, oh, Li Chen wanted to throw her fist into the air in celebration! _That_ had caught his attention, and if only the boy could get him to believe it—

"_Yes_, battleships," Sokka said. "One of them fired on us when we were trying to cross the Serpent's Pass, from the South Yellow Sea—and that's one of Ba Chang's borders, isn't it? Your responsibility goes at least that far, doesn't it?"

"Insanity, Your Highness," Long Feng declared. "Lies! They are telling you whatever they think will best convince you they are right."

"It is true that I have no proof except your word," Kuei said to Katara slowly, but he looked troubled.

"Then go look for yourself!" Sokka cried.

"Leave the _city_? Your Highness, surely they can intend nothing by this except to have you killed—"

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Toph spat.

"Then don't go look," Suki said, from Katara's other side. "There are hundreds of refugees, thousands, already in Ba Sing Se, and they'll all tell you the same thing—"

"In the Lower Ring? Where the king may be prey to any common criminal passing by? Your Highness—"

Li Chen cleared her throat, loudly enough to make it sting a little; and all of them turned to look at her, mouths still half-opened to shout—except for Kuei, who mostly looked bewildered. "If I may, Your Highness," she said, and bowed. "I believe I have a solution that will permit your questions to be answered and will not risk Your Highness's safety—at least not any more than it has already been risked."

* * *

><p>When he had first brought them here, Professor Zei had apologized for the quality of the rooms—for their size, mostly, and for their condition, because they had not been swept or aired since the fall, when it had been determined they would not be used. And when he had, Hok Suan had burst out laughing.<p>

Not that he had been wrong, at least in some ways: the rooms had been a little dusty, a little musty, with some spider wasp webnests forming in the darker corners. But even the main room alone had been larger than the single room in Hok Suan's parents' home. Hok Suan had expected that they would sleep on the floor, not that there would be _another room_—another room! Just for holding beds! And a third room besides that one, a room with a table—a _second_ table—and some shelves. Professor Zei had said that it was a study, and of course the shelves were for books, if they had any they would like to store there; he was a kind man, Hok Suan had thought, but a little silly. Her spare clothes, and Eng Pin's, were stored there now, along with the hand-broom one of the university servants had given her and the pan it could be used to sweep into.

They were at one corner of the building, and so had windows along not one but two walls—windows with glass in them, two panes, so that Hok Suan could open the shutters even now, in winter, and let in the sun. Even at night it did not get cold—Professor Zei had told them something about that, too, that there was some sort of hot water in the earth beneath the city, that the Upper Ring and parts of the Middle Ring piped it about in stone channels for heating. Hok Suan could not remember the details; but she could open the windows and not get cold, and even at night the air inside did not get cold either.

They had cleaned the place thoroughly, the first day, and then fallen asleep exhausted; and on the morning of the second day, a very pleasant woman had come to see them. To see how they were settling in, she had said, and whether there was anything she could do, and by the time she had gone away again she had gotten Hok Suan to agree that students and professors might pay her a little to make repairs to their clothes, and that Eng Pin could earn a temporary salary helping the university groundskeepers clear snow. By that afternoon, there had already been a student at the door, fretting over the hole she'd torn in her best day-robe, and the clothes had not stopped coming since.

Hok Suan had never had so much that she had done so little to earn! She felt almost guilty for days like today, sitting in the winter sun and sewing, humming to herself and a little to Ho-Peng so that she would not kick—

Another knock at the door—surely it could not be Professor Liao back for her jacket already? She had only dropped it off that morning, and had said she would not need it for several more days. Hok Suan weighed the difficulty of getting out of her chair with the risk of seeming rude, and had gotten about halfway up when someone said, "Hok Suan? I will let myself in, if you are there—you do not have to get up."

"Li Chen!" Hok Suan said, pleased, and let herself sit back down. "Of course, do come in."

Li Chen did, smiling, and bowed to Hok Suan as she had every time since that second day. She was an administrator of some kind, obviously, and no matter her rank it was surely Hok Suan who ought to have been bowing to her, but Hok Suan had tried that once—meaning to thank her, even though the bow would be a clumsy thing with the awkwardness of Hok Suan's belly—and Li Chen had objected so fiercely that Hok Suan had not tried it again. "I hope I am not interrupting," Li Chen said. "I have a student here, and I thought you might allow him to ask you some questions."

"Certainly, although I cannot imagine what—"

"About your journey from the west."

Hok Suan went silent and took a slow breath. Li Chen knew what she was asking or she would not have said it so carefully, so warningly; but here, here in this warm bright room, perhaps it would not be so bad to talk about. Perhaps it would not be so bad to remember.

She sat back in her chair and nodded. "Yes," she said, "yes. I would be glad to."

"Thank you," Li Chen said gently, and bowed again; and then she turned round and ushered the student in.

He was a bit older than most of the other students Hok Suan had met, probably at least her age, but he had spectacles and a long plait and a scholarly sort of look—narrow in the face and nose, the sort of man Hok Suan could imagine forgetting to eat supper because he spent too long at his books. Hok Suan managed half a bow before her belly stopped her, and hoped this student wouldn't hold it against her.

"Hok Suan," he said, a bit awkwardly, and glanced sideways at Li Chen before inclining his head a little way—not a man who cared strongly about fine manners, then, Hok Suan thought.

"This is—Hu," Li Chen said to Hok Suan, and then bowed again. "I will leave you to talk a little while, if that is all right," and Hok Suan suddenly wanted to tell her it was not, to leap across the room and grab her hand, but the door was already swinging shut; and then it was just Hok Suan and Hu, staring at each other across a sunlit stone floor.

"Come," Hok Suan said, after a moment, when Hu remained silent. "Come, sit down, please."

"Yes, all right," Hu said, and then, belatedly, "Thank you."

"Of course," Hok Suan said, and smiled so that he would know she meant it; and he sat. "Well. I do not know what it is that I can tell you, but I hope I can be helpful. What would you like to know?"

"All of it," Hu said instantly, and then looked vaguely surprised at himself. "I mean—everything. I have never—I have never been outside of Ba Sing Se, I do not know what to ask. Tell me everything."

"All right," Hok Suan said, and she did.

.*.

It was not precisely everything, in the end: she did not tell him about Eng Pin, about her family, because aside from what he could see just by looking at her, it was not his to know. But aside from that, she told him all she had to tell. It was still hard to talk about the village, about the soldiers and the fire; she tried to rush through it all at once and ended up gasping, with stinging eyes.

But the rest of it was not so bad. It was almost amusing, to see his eyes grow wide as she described the long walk to the Yellow Seas, the state of their feet when they had finally reached the ferry station—how they could not cross without papers, and how the Avatar had saved them from a battleship.

She had expected him to stop her—or to direct her, at least, to stop her when she wandered too far from whatever it was he actually wished to learn. But he sat at her table with his long, narrow hands clasped and listened to her silently, spectacles gleaming; and when she was finished and had trailed off, he still said nothing.

"That is—that is everything, as you requested," she said, smiling as best she was able after having dragged it all out into the light again. "The Avatar saved our lives and brought us to this city, and gave me a name for my daughter—"

"A name?" said Hu.

"Ho-Peng," Hok Suan said, and smiled again—this one felt better on her face than the last. "Because the Avatar has returned, and will surely bring us peace at last."

"I see," said Hu, and stood; and this time he inclined his head to her without hesitation. "You've been very helpful," he added, and then paused. "It is a good name. I think your daughter will like it."

It was such a funny thing to say that Hok Suan almost laughed—but he seemed to mean it, and had been very patient besides. "Thank you," she said, and bowed as much as she could in return. "I hope you will forgive me if I do not hold the door for you?"

"Of course," said Hu. "I will open it myself."

* * *

><p>It felt like it took <em>forever<em> for the king to come out of the building again. Not that Toph didn't understand why they had to wait outside, because she did; it had taken quite a few rounds of back-and-forth between Li Chen and Long Feng for them to agree to terms, but that was one neither of them had been able to argue with. Li Chen could go in to introduce the king, but had to come back out, and couldn't prompt Hok Suan or anything—and Long Feng could listen from the hallway, to be sure she didn't break the deal, but he couldn't go inside either, and had to settle for protecting the king from—who knew, anarchist assassins or something—by having a hundred Dai Li standing around outside.

Long Feng hadn't liked it much, sure, but the king had said it was a reasonable compromise, and after that Long Feng had gone along.

And now here they were, standing around in the cold with a bunch of grumpy Dai Li, waiting. Toph _hated_ waiting.

She nudged Katara with an elbow. "Can you at least send the dead kid in to see how it's going?"

"It's not like he'd be able to do anything if it were going badly," Katara said, sharp, and then, more quietly, "Sorry, Aang."

"Well, okay," Toph said, "but at least then we'd know—"

She was interrupted by the creak of the door, and she wanted to shout and throw her arms in the air except somehow it didn't seem like a good idea. The king was walking differently—not like Hok Suan had kicked him in the shin or anything; more like he'd gotten heavier somehow, or was tired. Which was weird, really, because according to the deal, he'd had to go in without his hat or his belt or his necklace, or anything else that might tip Hok Suan off that she was talking to the king. By all rights he should've been lighter.

"Your Highness," Long Feng said, and then the king moved—raised a hand, Toph guessed—and Long Feng shut up.

"I found the Avatar's appeal philosophically interesting," the king said. "You know how I like to argue with Li Chen's students. But now I hear—from the Avatar, and from a woman who has no conceivable reason to lie to me—that there are Fire Nation ships filling the South Yellow Sea, that the Fire Nation holds both banks of the Tai San, that Earth citizens from half a dozen kingdoms are taking refuge behind our walls.

"You have told me many times that it is the security of this kingdom that drives your every action, and, too, that nothing passes within the borders of Ba Chang without your knowing it. It's as inconceivable to me that you could somehow have failed to notice these things as it is that you could have noticed them and chosen to do nothing; and yet one of these two things must be true."

"Your Highness," Long Feng tried again, and then there was silence—the king had probably glared at him or something, Toph thought gleefully, and if it had just been her and Long Feng she would have stuck her tongue out at him.

"Your agents may go on about their duties," said the king. "And you as well—I value your guidance greatly, as I always have, and you have served this kingdom well as Grand Secretary in all matters but this one. But I will have answers, Long Feng, I will understand how this came to pass. Ba Chang cannot go on as it has."

"Yes, Your Highness," Long Feng said, because he might have been a scheming creep but he wasn't stupid—he knew when he was beaten. There was a sweep of robes across the ground like a whisper as he turned away, and Toph maybe did stick her tongue out at his back as he walked away, just for a moment.

"And as for you, Avatar," the king said, "you and your companions must stay with me at the palace. Tomorrow I will call the Council of Five, so that you may meet with the generals in command of our forces as they currently stand. And we will send messengers, perhaps, to the other Earth kingdoms, to offer them the possibility of a coordinated assault? That is more the Council's prerogative than mine—what do you think?"

Katara didn't answer for a long moment—Toph could feel her heart through the ground, pounding and pounding like it didn't know what else to do, even though the king had just told her everything she wanted to hear. Toph reached out and caught her hand; Katara's fingers twitched against Toph's palm, and then suddenly Katara was hanging on like Toph was the only thing holding her up.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Katara managed at last. "I think that sounds wonderful."

.*.*.*.

Long Feng strode away from the university at a carefully measured pace, hands neatly tucked into his sleeves, everything as it ought to be—a small and petty pleasure, to enforce such minor order, when the city might as well be crumbling around him.

Damn the Avatar and damn Jian Li Chen—damn Jian Li Chen a thousand times and a thousand more, for without her meddling he would surely have entered the university and collected the Avatar without any fuss whatsoever, and the Avatar would even now be—well. Reconsidering her perspective on matters. Yes, that would have been a good way to phrase it.

But the idiot woman had meddled, as she so inconveniently tended to do—and perhaps the fault in part was his. He had not warned the Avatar away from her, had not taken steps to ensure that the Avatar would not choose to pursue her as an ally. The Avatar had not mentioned her in any of their meetings, nor in Joo Dee's hearing, and Long Feng had assumed they had little to do with each other and had let it lie. Foolishness; and now he paid for it and paid dearly.

Fourteen years at the boy-king's side, tutoring him and tending him and teaching him to understand the basic truth his father had never appreciated: the great city, the kingdom, were nothing without the Dai Li. Seven more, reassuring him that nothing had changed with his crowning—that he could still depend on Long Feng fully, as he had learnt to do when Long Feng was his regent. One of Long Feng's agents had urged him to keep the crown, when Kuei had come of age; Long Feng had demoted him and assigned him to an interrogation camp in the southern swamps. Ba Sing Se had been ruled by an unbroken line of kings since its founding. If Long Feng had not valued that, he would have been unworthy of the Grand Secretariat.

And Kuei trusted him still, perhaps, in some respects; but that trust would never again come with the unquestioning faith Long Feng had so carefully cultivated. And now he and the Avatar would bring Long Feng's city to ruin—after everything Long Feng had done to protect it.

Kuei had not been wrong, in the majority of his assessment. Long Feng had known about the ships, about the river, about the refugees; and the Fire Nation was surely a threat, Long Feng was not so foolish as to pretend otherwise. That was precisely what made outright war such a terrible mistake. Five thousand years of art and music and beauty, philosophy and poetry, classical Earthbending tradition—all the invisible weight of history, and the Fire Nation could make it all so much smoke on the wind. They nearly had once already, and only Joo Dee and luck and the weakness of the Dragon of the West had saved Ba Sing Se then. The Avatar was nothing but a girl, not even eighteen, and Kuei had not even the slightest idea how to fight a war—what would save them this time? What _could_ save them? The Great Siege had brought Ba Sing Se nearly to its knees, and if Long Feng let such a thing happen twice during his term as Grand Secretary, he might as well throw himself upon a sword and leave his life's work to better men.

For his life's work it was, and he had done his best. But now he would be able to direct Kuei's actions minimally, if at all—and Kuei would have the Avatar at his side, and probably Li Chen also, because Long Feng's task had not already posed sufficient difficulty. Was there _any_ way out?

His path toward the Upper Ring had been quite clear, space made for him through even crowded market streets—he might have attributed it to the look on his face except that space was due the Grand Secretary wherever he went, and it had always been so. But now someone stood in front of him, bowing, and did not move aside even as he took another stride closer. An agent, one of the women; he was about to snap at her and send her away when he realized it was Joo Dee—the third-rank Joo Dee, who had earned herself a freely-chosen name at the Great Siege, as Long Feng had earned his many years ago, but had turned it down and remained Joo Dee.

She would not stop him unless she had a good reason. So he bit down on the harsh words that so badly wanted to escape, and when he did speak, his tone was calm. "You have something to report, Joo Dee?"

"Yes, Grand Secretary," she said, bowing again now that he had acknowledged her. "Our agents at the Lower Ring wall believe they have—"

"Believe they have what?" he said, when she did not continue.

"Forgive me, Grand Secretary," Joo Dee said, and came a pace nearer, lowering her voice. "They believe they have recaptured Princess Azula, as she was trying to enter the Middle Ring."

Princess Azula—Princess Azula whom the city guard had managed to lose not half a day after she had been given to them, Princess Azula who had been loose somewhere in the Lower Ring since. Long Feng had not assigned her a high priority next to the Avatar; the Avatar had been in the Middle Ring, at the university, trying to get to the king himself, and Azula had been—what? Loitering in the Lower Ring? Perhaps endeavoring to learn something about the city, or hire herself some indigents to use as thugs or cannon fodder? Or—equally likely, surely—trying to escape from the Lower Ring and get back out of the city, having evaded arrest. Some of the higher-ranked agents in the Lower Ring had been issued portraits and told to report anything they saw of her, but not to intervene; Long Feng had let her alone otherwise.

But trying to get into the Middle Ring was a more serious matter, and one that Long Feng could not ignore. He permitted himself a grim smile: a day ago, he would have been very pleased indeed, contentedly anticipating the hour when she might be traded back to the Fire Nation for something of value. Or killed, crown princess that she was, in hopes that the Fire Lord could be broken as his brother had been. But now—would even a gift of a Fire princess be enough to tilt the scales of Kuei's mind in Long Feng's favor? Somehow Long Feng doubted it.

Still, perhaps he could put her to good use when the Fire Nation did come knocking at Ba Sing Se's door, as it inevitably would if the Avatar continued to get her way. Perhaps—

The idea that came to him then was as inspired as it was unthinkable—but if he could save the city by it, if he could only save the city by it, it would be worth whatever costs came with it. And those costs, whatever they were, would be less than the cost of war. That, he was certain of.

"Sir?"

Joo Dee was still waiting for an answer—but she was used to his habits, used to the time he liked to take in thinking before he spoke.

"Excellent news, Joo Dee," he said heartily. "Most excellent. Take me there at once."

.*.*.*.

It had been rash. Azula could admit that readily enough. She had been taught to perceive and evaluate her faults a long time ago; she had thought to herself earlier about patience, and perhaps it had been more of a strain than she'd given it credit for, because the moment it had occurred to her that she could go to the university and see for herself what was happening, she'd wanted to. She'd come up with good reasons for it—she needed to see more of this city than just one set of districts, after all, and the more she could learn about it and about its people, about the tensions and complexities that might divide them, the better off she would be in the end.

And she'd told herself she had to go quickly. The Dai Li had been spread thin by whatever it was that had called so many of them away; if she'd gone to fetch Mai and Ty Lee and Samnang, she would have risked their return, would have risked missing her opportunity entirely. She'd felt herself to have a clear grasp of the difficulties involved, and she'd gone for it.

It hadn't gone badly at all, at first. There had still been the city guard, of course. Azula had left two propped gently against each other on the broad walltop—not exactly proper on-duty posture, but it would still have taken time for anyone to think they were anything other than lazy. She'd been tempted to toss them off entirely: it would have been a favor to the city, really, incompetent as they were. But dead bodies would have drawn attention in a way slumped shoulders hadn't.

But she hadn't been prepared for the sheer degree of surveillance in the Middle Ring. She'd gotten too comfortable in the Lower Ring, perhaps, with all its crowds and no one to care about them. It hadn't taken long at all for her to be spotted in what had apparently been a restricted area, and Dai Li had swept in seemingly out of nowhere.

She could have set them on fire, of course. She could have set the whole street on fire. But it had been impressive, in its own way, and she'd thought she might as well see what they did with her now that they had her. If it truly became necessary to escape, she had no doubt that she would be able to do it—but she'd wanted to learn more about the city, and about the Dai Li, and this was certainly one way to do it.

.*.

The agents who'd caught her seemed disconcerted by her willingness to sit and wait calmly; she did her best not to smirk at them. They'd dragged her into the nearest building and shackled her up just like the city guard had, her forearms wrapped with stone and pinned squarely behind her back. Exactly over the places that were still bruised from last time, in fact—and the bruises ached because of it, but it was a pleasant enough reminder that she could free herself whenever she wanted to.

At last there was the flurry of motion outside that meant someone who was actually important was approaching, and then the door opened—and the man they'd been waiting for was undoubtedly the man in the gold and dark green. His robes were not ornamented all that much more heavily than the other Dai Li, but he walked with the brisk confidence of someone in charge, and as he crossed the room the other Dai Li began to bow to him. "Outside," he said to them—and that, too, in the tones of a person used to being obeyed—and they went.

As he came nearer, his steps slowed; he was gazing at Azula sharply, assessingly, as though he expected her to look away under the force of it. She looked back at him coolly, and then she did let herself smirk.

He raised his eyebrows and lifted a hand—a hand with a sheet of rice paper in it, hanging unrolled from his fingers. "A fair enough likeness," he said. "Though it does not quite capture the eyes."

He twisted his hand to show her the portrait—and it was recognizably her, no doubt put together with the help of those idiots at the city's outer wall. He certainly worked quickly.

"Now that you think you know who I am," she said, "what will you do with me? Execute me? Ransom me back to my father for the promise of peace? If you're taking advice, I'd go with the execution—something public, maybe fireworks—"

"I have not yet decided," he said slowly, sounding almost amused; and then he folded his hands behind his back and looked down at her thoughtfully. "You are here for a reason. Those ships of yours are here for a reason, too. It has not escaped our notice, that there are so many gathered—the first reports I received on the matter hypothesized that perhaps you had troops on Lannang's west coast, that you meant to crush Lannang and Yan both at once. But your ships did nothing, and did nothing, and did nothing; and it became clear that you were preparing to accomplish something much greater."

"And what will you do about it?" Azula said, conversational.

"My king wishes to go to war," the man said, "because he does not know what the word really means. But you do, Princess; and I do."

Azula narrowed her eyes at him. What was he trying to say? Surely he wasn't going to—

"I have dedicated my life to this city," the man said. "To its service, and its protection, and its preservation. Whether we raise arms against you or not, this may all end in fire, and I cannot permit that—I cannot gamble this city's fate on my king's judgment, on luck."

Azula stared at him, silent, the tinder of her heart catching the first sparks of a wild, disbelieving joy. It wasn't possible, it _wasn't possible_. That woman had told her the Dai Li put the safety of the city first, but she had never expected anything like this.

"I would have Ba Sing Se's safety guaranteed," said the man. "Do you understand?"

She did. Impossibly, unexpectedly, beautifully, he meant to hand her Ba Chang on a platter. She had known since she was a child that it was her destiny to rule, and she'd believed it, but it hadn't ever seemed so clearly _true_ as it did now. Oh, she would have been pleased enough to give Father a lot of scorched rubble and a promise that Ba Sing Se would never rise again; but if she could give him a city, intact—a _capital_, even, for the glorious empire he would so soon build—

She hadn't even thought to try for it, and now the universe was bowing down before her and _giving_ it to her. She barely managed to keep from laughing wildly into the man's face. "I understand," she said, as calmly as she could manage.

"I am pleased to hear it," the man said. "You are an employee of the Ministry of Cultural Authority, chosen for this training exercise because of your superficial resemblance to Princess Azula. You will return to the Ministry with me and change back into your uniform robes, and then you will have the opportunity to retrieve your companions from the Lower Ring. And then—then we will have a great deal to discuss."

"Of course, Grand Secretary," Azula said, in her best approximation of a deferent tone, and then she stood. A great deal to discuss indeed—the fate of this city, the fate of her army—and with the vast institutional machine of the Dai Li bent to her will by this man, why, perhaps she would even be able to locate Zuko and Uncle at last.

"One other thing," the man said, taking her by the arm. "Your name is Joo Dee—do not forget it." He concentrated for a moment; and then the shackles on Azula's forearms crumbled away, and she was free.

* * *

><p>Returning to the Upper Ring, to the palace, felt like a dream—the king had agreed with them, had listened, had sent Long Feng away! It all seemed too good to be true. Yue did not quite know what to think, how to feel; and if <em>she<em> found it almost bewildering, she could not imagine how Katara felt.

For most of the trip back to the palace, Katara clutched Toph's hand on one side and Sokka's on the other, and seemed almost to be in a daze; but when they passed the palace wall, she laughed suddenly—at something Avatar Aang had said to her, Yue guessed—and after that she seemed all right. Probably it would take a little time for their good fortune to truly sink in.

The king was as good as his word, and gave them rooms; and he almost summoned servants to take them, but then Li Chen volunteered to be their guide.

The rooms were in fact a suite, with a vast bedroom chamber for each of them and a main room that connected them all like the hub of a wheel. It seemed like everything Yue looked at was gold, green, or both, from the lush silk cushions on the couches to the lantern fixtures—Li Chen was explaining something to them, something about meals and how to summon the servants, and Yue let the words wash over her and simply _looked_ at everything.

She was halfway across the room, trailing her fingers across the inlay on the table, when Li Chen's voice suddenly became words again. "—and if there is anything else you need—"

Yue looked up—it sounded like Li Chen meant to leave them, and, indeed, she was standing in the doorway, one hand against the frame. Yue wanted to thank her before she went, and began to open her mouth; but in the end she was not fast enough.

"How about an answer to a question?" Toph said, crossing her arms with maybe a little more belligerence than usual. "The king didn't exactly seem surprised to see you, but he also didn't seem to have a clue about the Dai Li. All this time, you've been coming up here, bringing university students by for tea or whatever, and you didn't ever mention the thing where the Grand Secretary's been manipulating this whole kingdom for seven years?"

Li Chen had gone still in the doorway, and for a moment Yue thought she might be angry; but when she looked up and met Toph's stare, her expression seemed mostly rueful—rueful and faintly sad. "You say it so easily," she said, "but where were you, seven years ago? A child, sitting on your mother's knee? It is a longer time than you give it credit for. Seven years ago, the king had only just turned eighteen, had only just become king in his own right. He inherited the throne when he was four years old. Who do you suppose was his regent?"

"You have got to be kidding me," Sokka groaned. He was sitting on one of the silk couches next to Katara, their shoulders pressed companionably together. "Did you guys just let Long Feng do _everything_ around here?"

He was half-joking, exaggerating his dismay as he so often did; but Yue looked at Li Chen's face and could not laugh. "It was not her decision," Yue said, and it came out graver than she had meant it to. Sokka turned to look at her, startled, but she kept her eyes on Li Chen and felt a cold kind of certainty growing heavy in her chest. "How old were you, when it happened?"

Li Chen looked at her, gaze dark and knowing, and the certainty grew colder, heavier. "I was nine," she said.

"What?" Sokka said. "When?"

Li Chen did not answer right away; she kept looking at Yue for a long moment, before she finally turned to Sokka. "I mentioned, I think, the fifty-first king of Ba Chang," she said at last, quiet. "He felt very strongly that the Earth Kingdoms had a certain duty to one another, a responsibility—that Earth citizens were Earth citizens, no matter their kingdom."

"Yeah," Sokka said, "I remember—well, too bad he didn't tell _this_ king that," and then he stopped short.

"The fifty-first king," Suki said slowly, into the silence, "and this king is the fifty-second. And when he was four, the fifty-first king—died?"

"A terrible accident," Li Chen said—very even, very calm. "There was at that time a royal train, in addition to the city trains, which ran from the palace through the Upper Ring. The fifty-first king used it often; it pleased him to leave the palace, to travel through the city. Sometimes he even took his children with him."

"His—his children?" Sokka repeated. "Besides the king?"

"He did not take the crown prince with him on that day," Li Chen said, "a blessing for which all Ba Sing Se is grateful," and she sounded as composed as ever, but her face had gone terribly pale, her shoulders strung tight. "When the track collapsed, it was feared for a time that all who had been inside the car were lost; but in the end, two of the king's daughters survived, and were dug from the rubble."

"And one of them was you," Yue murmured. She had suspected as much—Li Chen's easy entry to the palace, her manner with the king and the king's manner with her—but now she knew it was true.

She had tried to say it gently; but Li Chen closed her eyes for a long moment and said nothing. Across the room, Katara looked like she wanted to be ill, and Yue could not blame her. She herself could not help wondering, with a horrible guilty fascination, where Li Chen had been sitting—how many of her sisters had been on the train, how many had not survived it—whether she had been next to any of them when it happened, or in the rubble after, trapped in the dark with their bodies, waiting for someone to dig her out—

"I will not tell you what I cannot prove," Li Chen said—she had opened her eyes again, and now took a deep breath, and the worst of that painful tension left her. "But the fifty-first king died, and his strong opinions with him; and Long Feng was made regent and ruled this city unimpeded for fourteen years. When the Dragon of the West came for us, the fifty-second king was eighteen and had been crowned, but still relied upon the Grand Secretary utterly. And who will say he was wrong to do so? Long Feng saved this city from the Fire Lord, and in twenty-one years the king has had no cause to think ill of him." She looked at Toph with something that was not quite regret. "I hope you can understand why I have stepped lightly until now—and there are many battles I have won, when I chose to fight them. Long Feng would have shut down the university long ago if he had had his way, or made it nothing but a lot of pretty buildings where the second sons of the Upper Ring could while away their time. Perhaps it is not what you would have done, perhaps I have made war too quietly; but the things I _have_ done are not without meaning."

"No," Yue said. "They are not."

"Hold on," Sokka said. "You're the king's sister, then, and you're older than he is, right?"

"I am," Li Chen agreed, half a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.

"Then why's he the king?"

Li Chen was silent for a moment, and then she let out a slow breath and shook her head. "My father loved me," she said quietly, "and was always very proud of me—of how clever a girl I was. He used to give me papers, when I was young; papers, and then treatises, books. I would read them, and then he would ask me questions about them. Sometimes he gave me candied fruit when I answered especially well." She smiled then, fond, remembering. "It pleased him," she added, and then the smile slid away. "He liked that I was clever enough to remember all those things, to repeat them back to him. I don't think he ever expected me to learn anything from it—and even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered. He had many daughters, but Kuei was his son."

Yue found herself nodding along gently, understanding—but when Li Chen looked up, she looked at Katara, and Yue followed her gaze and saw that Katara's expression was utterly, hopelessly confused.

"It doesn't make any sense to you, does it?" Li Chen said, kind.

"_No_," Katara said. "I don't—there are queens in some of the other Earth Kingdoms—we know there are, we've met them—"

"Exceptional women," Li Chen agreed, "in times of great necessity, which the war has brought with increasing frequency. An Earth queen is certainly to be preferred to a Fire Lord." She paused and shrugged a shoulder. "If it had been me, I would have done my best. But the university suits me very well, and I would not trade it for a throne now even if I could." She shook her head. "But enough—what matters the most now is what I have told you of the fifty-first king. He was the king, but he drew Long Feng's ire and now he is gone. You are here, and you have the king on your side, but—and I'm sorry to say it—you must not make the mistake of thinking you are safe."

She bowed to them while they were all still gaping at her in dismay, and then closed the door behind her and left them exchanging uncomfortable glances with each other.

"Well," Sokka said. "I'm glad we've established that we're still in mortal danger. I mean, can you imagine, if we were actually safe and all our problems were solved? What would we do with ourselves?"

It was because he had said that, Yue thought later, that the sound that came out of Katara next was a laugh instead of a sob, and even then the laugh had shades of a sob round its edges.

Suki had been standing behind the couch, but now she came around the end and took Katara's hands, pulling Katara to her feet. "I don't know about you," Suki said to her gently, "but I'm ready to sleep for about three days. Let's take a look at these rooms, hmm?"

The rooms were huge and lovely, the beds vast and soft—the mattresses were probably stuffed with something utterly ridiculous, crane hawk down or shredded silk, but whatever it was it made them as gentle to lie in as calm water.

Katara looked at them and pressed her hand against them and said admiring things, but she did not look really pleased by them—Yue caught her gaze wandering the room, catching on the shadowy far wall, the vast empty space between, the door that led to the main room and the doors beyond that for all the other rooms; and Yue thought she knew why.

The bed was carefully made, silken blankets and silken sheets tucked in neatly at the foot of it where Yue was standing. Yue rolled up her sleeves and grasped the blankets, pulled them loose, and gripped the corner of the mattress. Sokka was standing by the head of the bed on the same side: she raised her eyebrows at him and lifted her chin expectantly.

"What are you doing?" Katara said, but Sokka had already understood—he grabbed the mattress at the top and then nodded to Yue, and together they tugged it onto the fantastically-embroidered rug on the floor.

"Not big enough," Suki said, eyeing it, and grabbed Toph by the arm; they went out into the main room and through one of the other doors, and came back through a moment later at either end of a second mattress, blankets draped over their shoulders.

"Oh, no—no, this is so stupid!" Katara warned; but she was laughing again, and this time it did not sound at all as though underneath it were actually weeping.

They lined the mattresses up next to each other and piled them with two beds' worth of blankets, and all told there was more than enough space for the five of them—or six, except Avatar Aang was not going to take up any room.

"I know we haven't even had supper yet," Sokka said, "but honestly that looks fantastic—"

"Oh, please," Toph said. "Who cares what time it is, we've earned it," and she catapulted past him to topple belly-down onto their construction.

The whim struck Yue quickly, and no sooner had she thought of it than she was grabbing one of the abandoned pillows from the empty bed. It sailed through the air in a graceful arc that ended on Toph's head; and Toph made a muffled sound of outrage and yanked the pillow off herself, clutching it with both hands. "Oh, it is _on_," she said, surging to her feet and jabbing the pillow threateningly at Yue.

"You will suffer greatly before the end," Yue intoned gravely, a fresh pillow in each hand—there had been at least five on the bed to start with. Sokka was cackling with laughter, beyond Toph, and Yue hurled one pillow at him for his insolence and then had to raise the other defensively against Toph's fierce attack.

* * *

><p>They had made it up the river safely, but in the end it was no cause for celebration.<p>

Mikama had thought there were many Fire Nation ships on the river, that the fleet they had pretended to be part of had been a large one—and it had been, but it turned out to hold perhaps a fifth or even a sixth of the ships that had been headed for the South Yellow Sea, and now all of them seemed to have arrived.

And it got worse: having arrived, none of them seemed to be inclined to leave. Hakoda did not want to test their disguises against anyone who might actually be paying close attention—and if ships had been leaving the Sea intermittently, for various reasons, they might have had a chance of slipping through, but they had not seen a ship head back down the river since they had arrived. They had already debated their options so many times that Mikama never wanted to hear the name "Tai San" again. If they were pressed for a reason for their departure, given that not one of the other ships seemed to be doing so, what would they say? Did it matter, given that the longer they stayed the more likely it was that someone would notice something odd—the way they sailed, or that they had no Firebenders aboard? They had escaped detection so far; was it worth the added risk to try to get away, when they might survive very well if they only kept their heads down and stayed where they were?

Around and around and around it went, and none of them had any answers. And Mikama had hunted full-grown female tiger seals, had scars left by the Fire Lord's southern raiders; she did not mind danger. But this uncertainty, this slow creeping fear that doom was coming for them and they could not stop it—this, she hated.

So in a way, she was almost grateful when the battleship signaled them.

.*.

Ukara was on deck when it happened, Ukara and Bato both, and Mikama had a warning in the way Ukara actually knocked twice on the hatch before throwing it open—she knew something was not right in that instant, well before Ukara said, "There is a ship, Hakoda."

"There are a lot of ships," Mikama said, because she was still herself and could not do otherwise; and Ukara glared at her, but not as harshly as she might have, which was another sign that something was not right.

"There is a ship signaling to us," Ukara clarified grimly. "I am not sure, but if they use the same system as the ships we fought in the bay, then they want us to sail over to them."

"And you are sure they mean this message for us?" Hakoda said.

"If they use the same system as the ships we fought in the bay," Ukara said again, "then they have also indicated that their signal is intended for a scouting vessel to their port side. That is where we are, and there are no others near us."

"Well," Hakoda said, and let out a slow breath. "Then I suppose we'd better go see what they want."

"Hakoda—"

It was Takka who had spoken—a cautious man by nature, Takka, which was why they had brought him: because by themselves or together, Mikama, Hakoda, and Bato did not have enough caution to fill a cupped hand.

And usually Takka had the right of them; but not this time. "Hakoda is right," Mikama said. "Any other Fire Nation vessel would answer. If we don't—what will they think? Even if they do not become suspicious of our identity, they may still send a few sailors to investigate our failure to respond, and what then?" She shook her head. "We must go."

.*.

They performed the thousand and one bizarre tasks it took to get a Fire Nation ship moving—no sails! How could anything be called a ship when it had no sails?—and sidled up to the vast bulk of the battleship. It had to be at least a dozen times the size of their little dented ship, and Mikama gazed up at the curving hull of the battleship over her head and let herself swallow.

She opened her mouth to shout up the side, and then realized she was not sure what to say; but a moment later the battleship solved that problem for her.

"Our thanks," someone called down, and Mikama squinted up at him—for it was a man, dressed in a uniform indicating that he was of middling rank.

"Our pleasure," she shouted back up, and she could not be quite sure but she thought perhaps the man smiled.

"It is a small matter," the man said, "you do not need to come aboard," and it was lucky Mikama had not thought of that possibility before or she would have agreed with Takka in a moment. "Nothing official. It is only that we have been holding prisoners for the troops preparing our debarkation point—we cannot hide that we have battleships here, but we do not need Earth civilians reporting our actions on shore to anyone!"

He laughed heartily, and after a moment Mikama joined him, though her mind was whirring. Whatever it was they had come here to do, they were clearly doing it—or about to do it; and if they were not about to do it to Ba Sing Se, Mikama would eat her helmet.

"But we have picked up quite a few," the man said, "and there are sure to be more, and so our captain wishes to have us begin the process of transferring them to other ships—"

"But not officially?" Mikama said, because she was an idiot and a fool and should have long ago sewn her mouth shut.

The man paused. "There are a few—disciplinary prisoners in our brig as well," he said, matter-of-fact, "and the captain would like to avoid making the matter official unless it is absolutely necessary. I am sure you understand."

The captain had locked up some of his own sailors, then, and whether it was for something embarrassing like drunken brawling or something petty like failing to salute correctly, he did not want to have to report it to his superiors. "Of course," Mikama said amiably, "of course. Well—we are not a large ship, but—how many of your cells is it that should be empty but are not?"

"Five," the man said, and Mikama thought she could detect the faintest tinge of relief in his tone. "Only five—and you will not have to hold them very long."

Damn—she had hoped he would say fifteen, perhaps twenty, some number that would permit her to claim they did not have space. But five? Even a ship this small ought to have space to hold five. And if the prisoners might be retransferred at some later date, if this ship would one day come looking for them—they could not be set free. They could not even know who exactly it was who held them, Mikama thought, or they might then attempt to trade the information for their freedom. Not that she would blame them; but it could not be permitted. She could not refuse the transfer, but if she said yes, she and the others had to maintain their charade even in front of these Earth Kingdom prisoners. Nothing else was safe.

And yet what choice was there? No choice at all. "Certainly," she called up to the man. "Let me inform my captain of the situation—I am sure he will agree that we would be glad to assist you."

.*.

Hakoda did agree, though Mikama had of course been generous in saying he would be glad about it; and he stood on deck beside her and watched as a folding ladder was lowered from the battleship. The prisoners were easy to spot: clad in green, hands cuffed in front of them so that they would be able to climb down the ladder. Mikama took the first one to make it down, holding him by the arm, and she kept her chin raised disdainfully and very carefully didn't look him in the eye.

Hakoda had sent Takka to figure out where exactly the brig even was belowdecks, as they had not had any reason to learn where it was before this. He came back up when the fifth prisoner was halfway down the ladder and nodded reassuringly at Mikama, so he must have found it. Which Mikama was grateful for—she could only imagine what the prisoner would have thought, if she had tried to take him below and had gone the wrong direction on her own ship.

Finally it was over, and the battleship retrieved its ladder and then sent them off with a grateful salute from the man Mikama had talked to; and then they were alone again on their ship, with five Earth Kingdom prisoners who could not know who they were.

"Get us turned around again," Hakoda said.

He nodded to Ukara, who had no prisoner to imprison; and Ukara said, "Yes—yes, sir," very carefully, and bowed, pressing a fist to her palm.

Hakoda had his helmet on, as they all did to help conceal their eyes, so Mikama could only guess at the expression that must be on his face. It felt utterly ridiculous to call him "sir", to bow to him whenever he gave an order, and yet what else could they do? It was unkind and Mikama knew it, but she could not help hoping that the Fire Nation ship came back for these prisoners very, very soon.

* * *

><p>Yung Kyun was not certain, at first, what it was that he was seeing, and he did not want to cause alarm unnecessarily.<p>

There had been many Fire Nation ships in the bay in recent days, after all. And he had done his duty and watched them, carefully; but they had all sailed past in the distance, off toward the Tai San, and none of them had ventured anywhere near Sai Sok Sun.

The Fire Nation had tested Cheolla's strength, in years past—had tried to establish bases, footholds. And it was true that they held the banks and mouth of the Tai San, which was the kingdom's traditional border; but in all other respects they had failed, and Cheolla had weathered a hundred years of war without paying a particularly steep price. There were skirmishes now and again in the mountains, and of course the fleets in Chameleon Bay were always at the ready. But the fists of the Fire Nation had always been aimed toward the western coast, and toward Bokjeo, and Cheolla had never drawn its ire in full.

But now there were yet more ships, clearly Fire Nation in design; and they were without a doubt sailing toward the harbor of Sai Sok Sun.

Yung Kyun took one more look at them through the glass, just to be sure. And then he turned away from the tower railing and grabbed for the reassuring weight of the hammer, and swung it with all his strength at the vast brassy bulk of the gong.

.*.*.*.

Huei Yeo, scrambling, nearly lost his footing on the steps, and only So Woo-Shik's hand on his back stopped him from falling entirely. They had so rarely been called to the harbor wall, and never in such a hurry—and it was windy today, too, all the stone wet with sea-spray.

He nodded thanks to Woo-Shik over his shoulder, and another three stairs brought him to the wall-top. Ha Jung Nam was already in position, and Huei Yeo skidded in next to him with Woo-Shik only a step behind.

There were boulders piled up along the outside of the wall, as there always were—and they had used them sometimes in exercises, had had to fetch them back and pile them up again, but today was not an exercise. Today the gong had rung.

And little wonder. Huei Yeo could see the ships easily from where he was standing, even though they were still a fair distance away—and they were a fair distance away but sailing steadily closer.

The shout that rang out across the wall did not actually sound like words to Huei Yeo, but he knew it was Lieutenant Cho and he knew what it meant: he settled his feet against the wall-top in a basic stance, as Jung Nam and Woo-Shik were doing to either side of him. Another shout, and they raised their arms as one; and then Lieutenant Cho cried out the traditional caution and took a warning shot.

The lieutenant's boulder arced out across the water as it was meant to, not quite toward the lead ship but near enough that it would splash into the bay by the ship's bow—to make it clear to this Fire Nation fleet that they were within range, that they could be sunk at any moment.

Except there was no splash. There was no splash; and Huei Yeo blinked and peered out at the ships only to see that Lieutenant Cho's boulder had flown halfway back across the distance to the wall, and now, _now_, was crashing into the water.

There was silence along the wall, and Huei Yeo understood why. Did they have Earth Kingdom prisoners? Had they forced—or even paid—Earthbenders to help them? There had been no blast of fire to turn the lieutenant's boulder aside, Huei Yeo had been looking. There was no fire on those ships at all, in fact; if they had catapults on deck, they might well be loaded, but they were clearly not alight. What sort of Fire Nation trick was this?

And yet Lieutenant Cho would have to do something—they could not simply let Fire Nation ships assault the harbor. Huei Yeo's arms were growing rapidly tired of being held at attention; surely Lieutenant Cho could not wait much longer, could not take the time to send a messenger to a superior officer—

Something was happening on the lead ship; it was close enough now for Huei Yeo to see it. Something pale, held up against the darkness of the hull—a white flag, Huei Yeo thought, and that together with the fact that the ships had not fired, that they did not even seem to intend to fire—could they possibly mean it? What could the Fire Nation have to negotiate for?

There was movement behind Huei Yeo—Lieutenant Cho, he realized, a moment before the lieutenant grabbed his shoulder. "You, you, and you," he said, pointing to Woo-Shik and another man beyond him. "You will come with me—and the rest of you," he added, raising his voice, "at ease. Wait here. If it seems to you that anything has gone wrong, or the ships open fire, do not hesitate to respond."

.*.

There was no time to have a ship prepared, so they rowed out in a much smaller boat; and it took them long enough that the Fire Nation ships must have seen and understood, because they were met halfway there by a sampan coming from the lead Fire Nation vessel.

The sampan was rowed as well, Huei Yeo saw, but there were also three women standing—two in brown, and something about their stance made Huei Yeo think they were indeed Fire Nation, but the third was dressed all in green, if in a very west-coast fashion.

"What do you mean by this?" Lieutenant Cho shouted, as soon as they were near enough. "What do you intend? You are Fire Nation—"

The woman in green made a disbelieving gesture with both hands, and let out a bark of disdainful laughter. "Is _this_ what passes for mannerly in the southeast? Even we can do better—"

One of the women in brown elbowed her in the side, indelicate; and the woman in green stopped mid-word and let out a sharp sigh through her nose.

"The ships are Fire Nation," she said grudgingly, "but they have served us well enough even so. I am Tan Khai, and this is Mizan, and there is a proposal we would like to make to whoever it is who rules this place."


	25. Beneath the Surface, Part 1

Thanks as usual for all new follows/faves, for this fic and for the prequel; and apologies again for the delay! Something came up Monday and I wasn't able to post this as planned. :P I'll be out of town at the end of this week, so the last chapter won't be up until Monday the 19th, but this one and the next one are the longest chapters to date, so hopefully it won't actually feel like much of a wait. (They were originally outlined as a single chapter, and then I got to the midway point and already had nearly 25k, which meant it was time to give in and split them into two!) Anyway: enjoy. :D

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13: Beneath the Surface<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>"There are three which still need widening," said the Chang Da Fourth Rank, bowing. "But that will be easy enough to take care of today; so you may tell the Grand Secretary that all is made ready, and by the time you have done so, it will be true."<p>

Under other circumstances, Joo Dee would have considered it reckless optimism, risky—to tell Long Feng a thing was true when it was not, hoping he would not find out, had to be the very definition of risk. But the Dai Li who were working away below them were skilled Earthbenders all, the best of the best, and what Chang Da Fourth Rank described would not take them very long at all. By the time Joo Dee had climbed back out of the catacombs and retraced her path to the Ministry of Cultural Authority, they would be finished. Unless perhaps there were an earthquake, but in that case Long Feng would have greater concerns.

Still, Joo Dee thought, Chang Da Fourth Rank should not acquire the habit of taking their duty to the Grand Secretary lightly. She fixed him with a flat and disapproving stare as he straightened out of his bow, and waited for him to lower his eyes uncomfortably before she said, "Very well," and turned away.

.*.

Joo Dee had not visited the catacombs often, for most of her time with the Ministry of Cultural Authority—she had not had any reason to. At first she had been too lowly ranked to deal with prisoners; and then had come the siege, the Dragon of the West, and after that she had been too highly ranked to be called in for anything less than a grave offense. The catacombs were not for grave offenders; they were for a sort of middle ground, for undesirables who were too important to simply vanish, or who might know something useful but were not in the end important enough to be held at a Ministry building. And no one taken to the catacombs stayed long. Only long enough for details to be worked out, paperwork to be completed—for the wrinkle they had caused in the fabric of the city to be smoothed, before they were moved to an interrogation camp for the long term.

But these days she could have navigated the catacombs with her eyes shut, she had walked them so many times. For all that might be said of Long Feng, good or ill, no one would ever accuse him of lacking thoroughness.

And what the Dai Li had done—thoroughly—was impressive, though Joo Dee did not expect any official record to ever say so. Perhaps the Fire Lord would commend them for it, in his time, and shower them with favors; and when the wheel turned again, no doubt the fifty-third king of Ba Sing Se would have them all branded traitors—and whoever was his Grand Secretary would nod and agree and make sure that it was done. Whether the price in the end would be hatred, dishonor, disgrace, did not matter. The Dai Li would pay it so that the city would not have to pay a higher one, and that was as it should be.

Long Feng had not presented the matter to them in those terms, of course. He had explained to the highest-ranking agents that he had found a way to ensure that war never threatened Ba Sing Se again, but that the king would not hear of it—that Long Feng's pleas had fallen on deaf ears, that the king had been led astray. By the Avatar, who was only a girl and did not know the error of her ways; and who could blame the king for being kind to a girl? Who could blame him for showing obedience and piety toward the Avatar herself? But the fate of the city lay with the Dai Li by the orders of a greater and wiser Avatar, and they could not shirk their duty now.

Certainly it had given some of the agents pause, when Long Feng had brought the Fire princess Azula out before them; Joo Dee had seen it in their faces. But the highest-ranking agents held the rank they held precisely because they were responsible, dutiful—because they believed in the same vision the Grand Secretary believed in. And the king was, in the end, a cultural tradition to be protected—even from himself.

To the lower-ranking agents, nothing had been explained at all. They would do as they were told by others, secure in the knowledge that they served the city by it. That, too, was as it should be.

Joo Dee paused at the top of the stair, put her hand to the door, and closed her eyes. The various entrances to and exits from the catacombs were all lit, but usually by the gentle green light of glowing crystals—compared to the street outside on even the cloudiest of days, such a light was next to nothing, and Joo Dee preferred not to stand around blinking helplessly if she could avoid it. She pushed the door open and took two steps, turned and closed the door behind her, and only then opened her eyes again.

Despite her caution, it still took a moment for her vision to adjust. Intriguing, really, how such a simple thing could make even a street Joo Dee knew as well as this one look briefly new. For that instant, the light seemed so sharp, the shapes of the buildings bright-edged and unfamiliar—but appearances were deceptive, and underneath the city was the same as it had always been. As it would always be, whether the banners that draped the walls were the king's seal or the black flame of the Fire Nation. Appearances were deceptive; the city, and the Dai Li, endured.

.*.

The Grand Secretary was, of course, in his office—his duties still took him to the palace at times, but not so often as they once had and not for as long, which meant he no longer left as early in the day as he had before. The king met with his generals more often than he met with Long Feng, these days, and under other circumstances Joo Dee knew that would have troubled Long Feng greatly; but the Grand Secretary now had other matters which occupied his time.

Joo Dee stood by the door, bowing, until at last there came the sound of paper shuffling, and Long Feng sighed and said, "Yes?"

"A report from the catacombs, Grand Secretary," Joo Dee said, straightening up, and was rewarded with Long Feng's full attention—he let the papers settle onto his desk, gaze fixed on Joo Dee, and rose halfway out of his chair. There was a smile beginning to curl his mouth; surely he had to know what Joo Dee was about to tell him, or at least he could guess. But Joo Dee would not have let the opportunity to be the one to tell him pass her by, not for anything. She took a deep breath, savoring, and then inclined her head. "The tunnels are complete," she said.

Hearing it aloud made Long Feng smile truly, at last. Another man would have tilted his head back and laughed, would have thrown his arms up in celebration; but Long Feng smiled, and then sat back in his chair, pressing his fingertips together with an air of satisfaction. "Good," he said, "good," and nodded once, sharply. "Then we are ready to begin."

* * *

><p>The more Azula learned about the Dai Li, the more pleased she was with them.<p>

Of course, they had given Azula what she wanted, which she always valued highly—or were trying to give it to her, at least, and seemed likely to succeed, and what greater proof of merit was there than success? And they spoke to her respectfully, bowed deeply, which was nearly as important in its own way and gratifying besides.

But even beyond that, the entire Ministry had a certain sense of order, of _control_, that was so—satisfying, even calming. Every single Dai Li agent knew their place and kept to it; they never seemed to ask one another questions or countermand one another. Their clothes, their shoes, their lodgings—all were provided by the Ministry, and there was no dissension because there was nowhere for dissension to arise, no space left for it. Their thoughts seemed to have been as neatly provided to them as their shoes, and they were uniform and obedient and absolutely everywhere.

No doubt they bored Mai half out of her mind, Azula thought; but if they'd been made for Azula as a gift, they couldn't have delighted her more.

Azula had accepted the Grand Secretary's offer of Ministry lodgings—at first because it would help maintain the fiction that they were agents themselves, and then, once Long Feng had explained the truth to the ones who needed to know it, simply because it was convenient. Besides, the Dai Li weren't the only people in the Upper Ring; granted, everyone else who was seemed to have had the curiosity neatly trained out of them, or else had lost it through sheer complacency. But there was no reason to take the risk of drawing attention, not when there was nothing to be gained by it.

And perhaps Mai was bored, but she hadn't bothered Azula over it. Samnang did as he was told, of course; and Ty Lee had to hate dressing up in the same uniform as a thousand nameless women, deliberately reducing herself to invisibility—but she would do it, for Azula.

A matter of days, perhaps hours, and all Ba Sing Se would do as Azula asked. Had anyone ever known a sweeter satisfaction?

She smiled to herself and leaned back in her chair, tilting her face into the sun—even the sunlight, the red burn of it through her eyelids, was like glorious flame. It was as though the whole of the universe were aligned behind her purpose, like hand and arm behind a knife—

"Azula?"

Ty Lee. Azula cracked an eye open. "Yes?"

"Somebody's here, from the Grand Secretary!" Ty Lee bounced twice on her toes, bright-eyed. "She says it's _time_."

Azula looked up at the ceiling, both eyes open, and let herself grin. "Well," she said, and she aimed for conversational but surely missed—she was simply too _pleased_. It was foolish, childish, to lose control of such a thing; but then she was talking to Ty Lee, and Ty Lee was the last person in the world who would hold it against her. "Let's not keep her waiting."

.*.

The walk to the Grand Secretary's office was short and pleasant—although today Azula could almost have wished it were longer, to give her more time and space to admire everything that was about to be hers. Could there be anything more pleasing to the mind than walking through a city on the morning of its conquest, knowing that by evening it would be beneath your heel?

They were bowed into the Grand Secretary's office right away, and when Azula entered, Long Feng was already standing, fingertips pressed together. He didn't exactly look eager, that wasn't the right word; but for a man who did what he did, he showed a genuinely admirable resolve. Azula might have expected him to waver from the course he had chosen, even—or perhaps especially—at this late hour, and yet: his hands were steady, his gaze certain. She could see no doubt in him.

Unexpected, but she had no complaints. Such clarity in pursuit of their purpose would only make this easier.

And he was not a fool; even in his own hall, he waited for the door to close behind them before he said, "Princess Azula," and inclined his head.

"Grand Secretary," Azula said, and did not incline her own.

"Our work is complete," Long Feng said, and even though she had known they were coming, there was still no sweeter music than those words. "I assume you will wish to coordinate with your troops. The Dai Li are, of course, willing and able to serve in that regard as well—if there is a message you would like to have sent outside the city, you need only give the word and it will be relayed for you."

"Of course, of course," Azula said, and took the three paces that lay between her and the Grand Secretary's desk. "If I may?" She did not wait for the answer: there was rice paper, a writing brush, fresh ink. She picked up the brush, thought for a moment, and then began to write. "And my uncle? My dear, dear brother?" she asked, without lifting her gaze from the page.

"The same," Long Feng said. "They are being watched, as you ordered. They suspect nothing."

"Mm." Foolish of Uncle, really, to choose to work in a tea shop when everyone who had ever met him could not help knowing of his fondness for the stuff. Azula had told the Dai Li to look in the teahouses of the Lower Ring, thinking that perhaps he might be spotted visiting one—she had never imagined he would be so easy to find. Such a tactical misstep, from the Dragon of the West! Though of course he probably hadn't found himself with too many other skills that someone in the Lower Ring would pay him to use—and Zuzu would be no help there, unless there was a job to be had by virtue of one's ability to glare unhappily. "Excellent. And you have somewhere to keep them?" She would not have trusted Uncle and Zuko to the city guard even if she could have, not after she had so easily escaped from them herself.

"Yes, of course," Long Feng said, nodding. "The catacombs where we have been working are often used by the Dai Li for such purposes. Once we have captured them, we will secure them there."

"Well," Azula said. Three more strokes completed the final character; she set the brush down across the inkstone, and then put two fingers down the side of her sash. She had given up her armor for Dai Li robes, of course; but the troops that waited outside the city would not accept orders that did not carry her seal. She had sometimes kept it around her neck, but in this case that would have been unwise—she hadn't needed anyone asking why only one of the middle-rank Joo Dees wore a necklace. She fished it out and swept ink across its face. "Then I suppose we are ready." One quick press, not too long so the ink would not bleed; a little flash of heat from her hand to make sure it was dry; and then she held the page out to Long Feng. "Have that delivered to the soldiers outside the city. They'll be prepared, when it's time to strike. I believe there were a few details you wished to take care of in the city, before the true assault begins?"

"Yes, Princess," Long Feng said, and smiled. "It will all be dealt with shortly."

* * *

><p>It was easier to wake with the sun when spring was so close, when the days were beginning to lengthen again—so many times in the darker part of winter, Wan Liu had found herself staring at the dim shadow of the ceiling, wide awake but stuck waiting for the sun to rise so she would not waste firewood or lamp-oil or candles just for the sake of having something to see by. Back when they had had firewood or lamp-oil or candles, at least; here in Ba Sing Se they had nothing, except a plain little lantern Mushi had bought that had a stubborn wick. It liked to light for Mushi, and for Li, but Wan Liu had never had much luck with it.<p>

Except now she did not need to have any luck with it, because spring was creeping nearer, and the sun was rising earlier, and she did not have to lie quietly in the dark and wait for morning anymore.

She had risen today to weak dawn light and a chilly floor—they did not have a real fire because they did not have enough money to feed one, although there was a small brazier they kept to cook over. Coal was expensive, but—one of the many mysteries of living in a city—not as expensive as wood; perhaps because it came in smaller and denser portions, easier to pack onto a train. Once Mushi and the children were awake, the stone tended to warm up nicely, probably because they were all moving around and touching it. But when it was just Wan Liu, the floor was very cold.

The windows were paper, which kept the worst of the wind out and still let in a soft light—enough for Wan Liu to sweep by, first. And then enough to find both their pitchers, and also the bucket, the one with rope for a handle, which had somehow gotten shuffled off into a corner; probably for one of Jin's games, Wan Liu thought fondly. He was always needing a new cliff face for his train to navigate.

If the floor had been cold, the street was colder, and Wan Liu's left shoe was going to need a patch very soon. But the public fountain down the street was not frozen, nor was its water cut off, as it sometimes had been before without warning. Wan Liu filled pitchers and bucket both and then slung the bucket-rope over her shoulder.

She couldn't carry it all and climb besides, so when she reached the ladder-stair, she set one of the pitchers down, and then straightened and was greeted by the sight of—a hand?

"Give one to me," said Li; his face above her was nothing but shadow, but she knew it was him because of his voice, that stone-on-stone voice, as though every word he spoke were scraped from him. Perhaps the sound of it should have been unpleasant, but it only made her smile—begrudging seemed to come naturally to him, in speech as in everything else, and yet all the memories she had of him were, in their own way, generous: the dumpling he had accepted from Zhiyang, the way Qingying had smiled after spending a little while on the roof with him, the toy train he had given to Jin. And now—waking earlier than he usually did, and rousing from his warm bed to help an old woman carry water. Maybe she was wrong; maybe generosity came naturally to him after all, and he tried to be grudging instead but was not any good at it.

She bent down for the pitcher she had meant to leave on the floor and handed it up to him, and then handed him the second when he motioned for that one, and then the bucket on its rope—oh, she could have carried it, but she did not have the trick of keeping all the water inside it when she did, and a winter morning was not a good time to find yourself with a trickle of cold water running down your back. Not even so late a winter morning as this one.

"Thank you," Wan Liu said, warm, as she began to climb; she saw Li's gaze flick to her face, and as quickly away, and he turned, a pitcher in each hand, and said nothing in reply.

He was carrying them toward the brazier—because he had seen her do it often enough to know where to take them, she thought, and that tiny, unthinking show of familiarity made her smile. She reached the top of the ladder-stair and took up the bucket Li had left behind, following, and by the time he'd set the pitchers down and turned around, she was there.

"Thank you," she said again, where he could not pretend not to hear, and this time Li flushed and looked away.

"I was rude to you," he said, abrupt. "Before. When we—when we met the first time."

"A little," Wan Liu agreed, not unkindly, when Li did not seem as though he meant to continue.

"You weren't angry," Li said.

"You were," Wan Liu said, and could not help smiling when Li looked at her with wide eyes. "You think I don't know what anger looks like? You think I have never been angry?"

"You weren't angry with me," Li said.

Wan Liu shrugged a shoulder, gentle. "You weren't angry with me, either," she said. "You were angry with something else—with yourself. You did not need me to be angry with you, too."

Li looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment; she lifted up a pitcher, splashed cold water on her face and hands, dried them, as though she could not feel his gaze following her.

"I never asked you what happened," he said, quiet. "Why you were in the ferry station, the day we got there."

Wan Liu held a hand to the side of the brazier—still a little warm, so something must have lasted the night—and did not look at him. She wouldn't tell him about the girl who had claimed to be his sister; she knew that without even pausing to consider. He would not take it the way his uncle had, she was sure of that, and what good would it do? "There was a fire," she said at last, which at least was not a lie. "We did not know where else to go."

"I'm—sorry," Li said—but it was not an apology, Wan Liu thought, only an expression of sympathy, and that was as it should be.

She looked at Li and smiled. "Who in this world has not lost something?" she said. "And considering the things we could have lost—a house, in the end, is not so very much." And he, surely, already knew that—a boy who traveled with his uncle, who never spoke a word about his father or mother; who had, one way or another, turned his back on the nation that had given him those yellow eyes, if he really did work for the queen of Lannang. And had paid for it, too, by the scar on his face.

He _had_ been angry, when they first met—angry in the way of a person who turns to anger out of habit, and a habit like that was difficult to break. But Li had done it, or at least was learning to; he had been kind to Zhiyang, to Qingying, to Jin, and the anger was still there, perhaps, but no longer seemed to drive him as it once had.

"But your brother—"

"The house is not the first thing I have lost, that is true," Wan Liu said. "Wan Hao was my family for a long time, and I loved him; but he is not the only family I have. Only look," and she threw a glance over her shoulder at the floor where the children were still sleeping, "and you will see—for all I have lost, I am still a rich woman."

Li stared at her, brow furrowed; and Wan Liu looked at his narrow, sour, uncertain face, and felt fondness well up in her like fresh water.

She reached out and touched his arm, wrapped her hand around his wrist, and then said to him gently, "Whatever family it is that you have left behind or lost, I hope you know it is not the only one you have."

Li was still for a moment, and then, slowly, uncertainly, he reached out himself, and rested three fingertips against the back of Wan Liu's hand.

He did not seem to know what to say, and Wan Liu did not want to make him uncomfortable; she smiled at him and then let go and turned back to the water, the brazier. The rice pudding from yesterday's breakfast was still hanging over the brazier, but it needed to be warmer—too cold and Yanhong could not be convinced to eat, no matter what she was promised as a treat in return for emptying her bowl. And for lunch—Wan Liu counted coins in her head. The sun was already beginning to shine red-gold against the paper windows, and if it were mild today, the children would hate to stay in—

"When will you be at the tea shop today?"

"I—the afternoon," Li said, clearing his throat.

"Then perhaps you will choose to do me yet another kindness," Wan Liu said, "and take the children out for something to eat later? Qingying will go, too, you will not have to do it by yourself—"

"Of course I will," said Qingying, behind her—they must have woken her with their talking. And if Li seemed to be learning to do without anger, Qingying was perhaps learning to do without fear. A month ago, Qingying would have said it quickly, hurriedly, desperate to avoid giving Wan Liu any reason to consider them a burden; but she said it this morning with a tentative smile, when Wan Liu turned to look at her, and Wan Liu could not help but smile back.

"You can even take them by the tea shop after," Wan Liu said to Li. "That way you will not be late."

"Yes," Li said, "yes, I—I would like that."

.*.*.*.

She should perhaps have felt it coming—should have looked up and seen the messenger hawk wheel overhead, and been filled with foreboding. But it was only a messenger hawk, a dart of brown feathers and gleaming harness against the vast pale morning sky; and Admiral Paozun sent them with remarkable frequency. Yin stood on the deck and squinted up at it, and then raised an arm, and the hawk screeched and wheeled again and then swept down for a landing.

"Haven't been letting you out enough, have they," Yin said to it, grimacing and bracing her arm against its weight; and then she plucked the scroll-case from its harness and strode into the bridge.

She let the hawk off onto the table with a sigh of relief, and rubbed her abused forearm with one hand while she thumbed the cap off the scroll-case with the other. Probably orders to run weapons drills, or perhaps maneuvering exercises—they had done one or the other nearly every day, now that the fleet was fully assembled.

The war machines were all away; they had been unloaded with admirable efficiency onto the shore, and Yin was glad to have nothing more to do with whatever they were intended for. So whatever Admiral Paozun wanted, at least it was no longer to do with them.

The scroll wanted very badly to curl; Yin pinned it flat with her hand and began to read.

She was still reading when Kishen came through the hatch, the clang of his boots against metal suddenly and almost absurdly loud—the noise made the hawk screech and flutter its wings unhappily, and Kishen made an absent, soothing sound and then stopped short.

"Sir?"

"Catapult drills," Yin said, without looking at him. "It'll be catapult drills today."

"Yes, sir," Kishen said, slow and almost wary—because he'd noticed something, of course he had. "The orders will need to be copied, sir—"

"Not yet," Yin said, and kept her gaze on the rice paper underneath her hand. "The hawk. Send the hawk back to the admiral."

"Yes, sir," Kishen said, after a moment, and coaxed the hawk to his arm with a few murmured words. He was looking at her, she could tell that he was; but she wasn't sure what her face might look like, what he'd see in it, and that meant she shouldn't look up.

He stepped out and closed the hatch behind him, and she stared down at the paper and tried to figure out what she was going to say to him.

Such a little thing—brushstrokes on a page. It was almost funny, she thought distantly, that this should be what she had been waiting for—that this should be the choice that would undo her, the choice that wasn't a choice at all. By all rights, it should have had something to do with the Avatar, with the spirits; it should have been an inquiry into Zhao's death. But no: it was just her, standing in the bridge holding a piece of paper, being given an order she could not imagine following.

There would be catapult drills, she hadn't lied about that; but in addition to Admiral Paozun's orders, there were other orders. Recopied, as Paozun's would be recopied by her, and sealed with his seal, but they had not come from him—it said so, right at the beginning. In practical terms, she could even understand them: to capture and hold civilians in the numbers that were expected was downright impossible, and simply allowing them to escape to other kingdoms—to swell the ranks of armies that would need to be defeated in the future, perhaps—had clear disadvantages.

And yet, when she saw it there, when she read it to herself: _Earth Kingdom citizens attempting to flee the seizure of the city are not to be permitted to cross the Yellow Seas, but are to be fired upon at will_—she stared at the words and could not imagine how Paozun could have read them and then had them taken away to be copied, knowing they would be sent on. Had he hesitated? Had he looked at them with discomfort, with unease, even as he put his seal to them?

Was it even reasonable to think that he should have? She didn't know how to tell anymore—surely _he_ would not have thought _her_ reasonable, had he seen her drive a sword through her commanding officer's back, and yet at the time she had not felt able to do anything else. It had seemed so clearly to be the only path through.

As there was only one path through now.

A hundred years ago, perhaps she would not have recoiled from the idea—perhaps no one would have. The enemy was the enemy, after all; and in those early days, when there had been so few true armies, perhaps there would not have been a line to draw between _civilian_ and _soldier_.

But a hundred years of war had refined the workings of combat, the understanding of what honor meant in such a context. Yin glanced over toward the corner of the table—empty, on the bridge, but that corner on the table in her cabin held her books. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago that the captain of the Yu Yan Archers had smiled at her and slid Le Hoa Duan into her saddlebag. The works of the Earth Kingdom sage, clever and sly and absurd, had proven wholly different in tone from Meizao Lin's calm and well-reasoned arguments; but both had discussed the pursuit of piety, of rightness of action, in a time of so much killing, and Yin had discovered as she read that she herself already possessed a certain unspoken understanding.

Soldiers were soldiers, and every soldier in every Earth Kingdom had made the same bargain Yin had, the same agreement: that they were willing to give their lives for their nation, that they were willing to kill people for it and let people try to kill them in return. There was no injustice there, no dishonor. But civilians—

Between soldiers, it was battle, but civilians made it slaughter; and slaughter like that was the worst kind of dishonor, a stain on everything from the armor Yin wore to the ship that served her, and every sailor on it besides. And, feeling so, Yin could not pretend to feel otherwise, could not simply set it aside and pass the orders on with her own stamp upon them. It was hopelessly irrational of her, surely, to place so much importance on the simple act of not betraying herself when there was so very much at stake. Irrational, impractical, ridiculous; whoever it was who had calmly and coolly decided that fleeing civilians represented a problem best dealt with by catapult would surely have thought so.

And yet she had sworn to serve the Fire Nation with honor, with righteousness; and if she let the Fire Nation turn that service into something else, something reprehensible, surely that broke her oath in its own way?

Perhaps if she were lucky she would survive, and be tried for her mutiny by a war minister with a taste for philosophy.

.*.

It did not take long for Kishen to return, hawkless; and when he did, he gave her plenty of warning, tromping up to the bridge hatch with quite a bit more energy than usual. It had been luck beyond all measure that she had taken the Avatar and her companions to the gate he had been guarding, she could see that easily in retrospect. She could never have guessed at the time that he would be so astoundingly willing to help her; and even beyond that, so competent, so observant, so very easy to get along with.

He had done so many things he should not have done, with her, but none so dangerous as this—would he be willing again? It seemed ludicrous to imagine that he would; he had untied ostrich horses for her, had kept quiet about the Avatar and about Zhao, but this? Was it even fair to ask him to follow her, in this?

The hatch creaked open behind her. "Sir," he said quietly.

"Close the hatch," Yin said, and he did.

She felt steadier, calmer, and so this time she turned around and looked at him. She had the orders in her hand, and held them out.

He could read a little, she knew, and the orders as written didn't contain any particularly obscure characters; she waited, giving him time, and she could see the moment he reached the sentence that had caught her attention, the way his gaze flicked back up the line of characters so he could read it again.

His expression didn't change. He finished reading and rolled the orders up carefully when he was done, and only then did he look at her. "What would you like me to do, sir?"

_Set them on fire_, Yin didn't say. She drew a slow breath, and tried to decide how best to say it; but subtler words refused to come. "I can't do it, Kishen."

"Sir—"

She reached out and took the paper from his hand—if she had been born a Firebender, the page would already be ash, but as it was the sheet remained whole beneath her fingers. "I cannot," she said again. "I know we are at war, I know it; but the face of our enemy is not going to be found in—in helpless people fleeing from our princess's victory. 'For the greater glory of the Fire Nation'—" Yin tossed the half-curled page onto the table with a sharp flick of the wrist. "This will not make my nation glorious. This will make it—" She shook her head, groping for a word. "This will make it—nothing, make it _vile_. All the things that I have wanted from it—wanted _for_ it—" She shook her head again and clenched her fists. This had happened to her before, this feeling of seeing a thing she loved cast in a suddenly bitter light; the love did not go away, but it hurt where it hadn't hurt before—where it had once given uncomplicated gladness but never could again.

She closed her eyes and stood silent for a long moment; Kishen said nothing, and when she opened her eyes again, he was looking back at her, calmly and without judgment.

"I want nothing more," she said, "than to act for the glory of the Fire Nation."

Kishen gazed at her without expression; and then, unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth began to tilt—upward? He was damned well _smiling_ at her. "Then do it, sir," he said.

* * *

><p>The first time Katara had met with the Council of Five, she had barely heard a word anyone had said. The five greatest generals of the most powerful Earth kingdom there was, talking to <em>her<em>—listening to what she'd said they should do, to what the _king_ had said they should do, and deciding how best to make it happen! She'd been lucky already to find Suki, Yue, Toph; and she'd known she was going to need to be even luckier, because even with their help, how would she ever have taken on the Fire Nation? But she had never imagined she could be as lucky as this. Even now, when it felt like they'd met just about every two days since, it was kind of hard to look around at a room full of generals and officials and not feel a certain awe.

Although for all she knew some of them were feeling the same way about sitting in a room with the Avatar. Katara tried to imagine General How or General Ji, sweaty with nerves, sneaking wide-eyed glances at _her_, and wanted to laugh—but the meeting wasn't over yet, so she swallowed it down and tried to pay attention instead.

"—sent to the nearer kingdoms have already returned," General Wei was saying, waving a hand at the enormous map that lay in the middle of the room. "Three of them will be offering full reports later today, but I have been informed that we are likely to be able to reach an agreement."

"To _reach_ an agreement," General Sung sniffed. "As if there is anything to discuss! These minor kingdoms should be grateful—"

"As I am sure they will be," General Ji said, evenly, "when they have a chance to hear the information we have to give them. You may recall that the messages sent by the king were vague—and for very good reason. The messengers sent to Shuming Wo have not returned, though they departed the same day as the rest."

He met Katara's gaze soberly, and she looked back, any urge to laugh gone. General Ji didn't speak very often, but Katara had found that she liked it when he did; he was quiet and thoughtful, and seemed to care much more than General Sung about the consequences of the Council's decisions.

"Captured," General Sung said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. "We will ransom them back at some point."

Katara snuck a glance at Sokka: he was rolling his eyes. He didn't like General Sung much either.

General How cleared his throat pointedly. "The messengers sent to the southeast have returned with additional good news," General How said, "which I believe the Avatar will be pleased to hear," and he turned to face Katara and inclined his head. "The last we had heard, the kingdom of Bongye was suffering greatly under the assaults of the Fire Nation—but that is no longer the case. A fleet of Water Tribe ships came to their aid."

Katara stared at him; without entirely meaning to, she found herself clutching Sokka's hand, which would have been embarrassing except he was clutching back. Aang had been drifting around the ceiling somewhere, the way he usually did during the Council's meetings, but he had heard it, he must have, and he was floating down toward them, bright blue in the corner of Katara's eye.

General How smiled. "The situation is less urgent these days," he said, "and no doubt they will go where they are needed; but by all accounts the ships are still in Chameleon Bay, at least for the moment. Perhaps you and your brother will be able to take some time away to visit your people."

"Perhaps we will," Katara managed to say, with reasonable formality; she almost wanted to laugh again, but couldn't quite do it. They'd thought about seeing Father again, when they'd run into Bato—it seemed like so long ago!—and even then it had been hard to imagine; it was three years now since they'd seen him. When he'd left, it had felt like he might as well be traveling to the sky, he'd been going so far out of their experience—but Katara realized with a jolt that she and Sokka had probably gone even further than Father ever had, by now. Bato had surely found the fleet again, and he must have told Father he'd seen them—what had he said? What had Father thought, when he'd learned she was the Avatar? When Bato had told them they were on their way to the other side of the world? Katara could hardly remember what it had been like before she'd known Suki, before she'd met Yue or Toph; but Father didn't even know who they were—

It was amazing and awful at the same time, to think about how far away she was from the twelve-year-old Father knew her best as. Maybe they would go—maybe they would _all_ go, and with the Council here to take care of the eclipse and Father standing beside her again, maybe everything really would start to get easier.

"Well," said General Wei, brisk, "I believe that is all—until this afternoon, of course. I assume the Avatar and her brother will also wish to join us to hear the messengers' reports?"

"Yes," Katara said, "yes, of course. We'll be there."

.*.

Sokka left her in the hallway outside the Council room with a farewell squeeze of the wrist, saying something about going to try to find a snack—but his tone was a little too casual, and Katara could guess from the look on his face that what he was really going to go try to find was probably Suki. She hid a smile and told him he was a bottomless pit, and then, at last, it was just her and Aang.

She looked both ways along the corridor to make sure, but there was nobody in sight—and she was glad for it. It had gotten so much harder to find time to talk to Aang in the middle of a busy palace, so many people nearby all the time; oh, they knew she was the Avatar, and maybe she could have tried explaining it, but she hated telling people about Aang like he wasn't right there listening, and unless she was really going to be around long enough for them to get used to it, it didn't seem like it was likely to keep anybody from staring at her. It was safe in the evening, when it was just the six of them in their rooms sharing their makeshift bed, and Katara had talked to him then a few times—but she kept falling asleep partway through.

She turned to look at Aang to find he'd been checking the hallway, too, and then he looked back at her and beamed. "So," he said, drifting a little nearer, "are you really going to go visit your father?"

"I want to," Katara said, "if we really do have time." It was weird to think about leaving, about just—going for a trip, after everything they'd had to go through to get here in the first place; but the Council and the king knew everything now. What did they need Katara for? What could it hurt, if she left for a little while to go find Father?

"I guess we probably will," Aang said, like he was thinking the same thing she was—Katara smiled at him, pleased, but his answering smile was off somehow, dim and too-thoughtful.

"Aang?"

"What's—what's he like?"

Katara blinked. "What's he—what do you mean?"

"I don't know," Aang admitted. "I don't—in the temple I never—is there something different about him that makes him—you know, fatherous?"

Katara couldn't help laughing at the word, but she was pretty sure she knew what he meant to ask. "I don't think so," she said, gentle. "I mean—not more than anybody else. I love him and he loves me; and I've ignored him sometimes and we've made each other angry and he's annoyed me, but we never let that stop us from taking care of each other. That's what Monk Gyatso was like for you, right?"

"Pretty much," Aang agreed, and the look on his face was so wistful Katara wanted to hug him.

"Then I think you know about having a father at least as well as I do," Katara said. "And better than some people who actually have fathers, probably." Fathers were complicated, after all. Katara thought of Yue, keeping everything she could do so carefully secret from her father until Katara had come along and made it so she couldn't, and Toph, whose father had stood there and let her walk away without so much as a goodbye. Prince Zuko, even, whose father had sent him away when he was still practically a boy—granted, Katara thought he was awful, with all the times he'd attacked them and all the trouble he'd caused them, but his _father_ shouldn't have thought so.

"Maybe he'll even be able to help us," Aang said, after a moment. "If we use the eclipse to go after the Fire Lord, we're going to need some ships."

"I think the Fire Nation probably has a few more ships than he does," Katara said, laughing.

"Well, maybe," Aang admitted, sheepish. "But it sounded like he did a pretty good job with the ships he had, didn't it?"

"It did," Katara said, because it was true—it made a little thrill of pride tingle in her chest just to think about it. _Two_ Earth kingdoms, on the brink of defeat until Father got there with his ships, with her uncles and aunts and cousins, and saved them. All those raiders, so much of the Southern Water Tribe lost, and still, still, the Fire Lord couldn't stop them.

"I bet he's going to have some questions about this whole Avatar thing," Aang said—and he chuckled a little after, like he meant to tease her, but it was so close to what Katara had been thinking in the Council room that she couldn't join in.

She looked away instead, smiled halfheartedly at the wall; and of course Aang noticed, because how could he not when she was the only other person in the hallway?

"Wait, are you—you're _afraid_?" he said, startled.

"No!" _Afraid_ of Father—that wasn't the right word at all. "I just—I don't know. Hearing it from Bato like that, when he hasn't seen me in so long—I can't imagine what he thinks of it. And what have I even done with it, anyway—"

"Are you _kidding_?" She looked up then—it had been mean of her to look away, really, when Aang couldn't touch her to catch her attention—and found Aang looking back at her with an expression she couldn't quite name. "Katara—_Katara_. Are you kidding? He's going to be so proud of you. _I_ am," he added, almost shy, and then frowned. "If he isn't, you should get a new one."

Katara had been about to bite her lip—to ask whether he really thought so, or maybe to thank him, or both; but at this she couldn't help but smile. "I think I'll keep him even if he isn't," she said, "but I hope you're right."

"Of course I am!" Aang said, crossing his arms imperiously—except he was drifting sideways and started to go partway through the wall, which ruined the effect a little. He noticed and frowned at the wall, and then swooped down and away until he was back at Katara's shoulder. "If nothing else, he's got to be impressed by the Earthbending, right? You're getting really good at it—you know you are, or Toph would yell mean rude things at you instead of nice rude things."

Katara laughed—it was true, after all. Toph still shouted at her all the time, but these days it was mostly things like "Oh, come on! You can do better than _that_," which actually was a compliment if you looked at it carefully enough. Katara didn't think she was ever going to feel about earth the same way she felt about water; but maybe that was all right.

"You guys did say you were going to practice today, didn't you?" Aang said.

"Yes," Katara admitted.

"Well, come on!" Aang narrowed his eyes at her, and tilted his transparent blue chin up. "Race you," he added, and then darted away.

"Race—but you don't even have to use your feet!"

* * *

><p>Yue was glad she had asked Suki for help, truly. Even as unskilled with the pike Father had given her as she was, she had noticed a change in her hands, her arms, her calves—but practicing with it still tired her more quickly than she liked, and who would be better able to teach her how to strengthen herself than Suki? Suki had been fighting since she was practically a child, had taught other girls how to do the same; and Yue would never be a warrior in the way Suki was a warrior, but on a journey like this it seemed wise to learn to handle what weapons she had as best she was able. It was only reasonable to ask Suki for assistance, and it had been very kind of her to agree.<p>

Yue only wished it could perhaps hurt a little less.

"Still aching a bit from yesterday?" Suki said knowingly.

Yue made a face at her, rueful. "A bit." It was not a _bad_ pain, not like a wound; it was just that a sore muscle hurt so _often_, and she had so many of them. She had never realized she used her back and stomach muscles for so many things—and now that she did, she wished she could stop, but it was surprisingly difficult.

Suki smiled. "You're doing really well," she said, "if that helps," and then she wiggled her fingers expectantly. "Come on, hands."

It was the least pleasant part of Yue's least favorite stretch: they were seated on the floor of the sparring room, facing each other, with their legs as far apart as they could manage. Suki, of course, could manage very well, legs nearly a straight line; but Yue's feet were usually braced against Suki's ankles, at best, and it made her thighs—not _scream_, perhaps, but—shout. Loudly.

And then, to improve the muscles of Yue's back, Suki took her hands, and helped Yue lower her torso toward the floor as far as she could bear. Which was not usually particularly far, although Yue was discernably better at it now than she had been when they had begun these sessions.

Yue wrapped her fingers around Suki's wrists and pulled, felt Suki pull back—it was not about Suki simply yanking her down, as Yue had mistakenly thought the first time, and yet the tension was still surprisingly helpful. Yue was also getting better at keeping her back straight, instead of letting it curve the way it wanted to, which was possibly proof that her back was indeed getting stronger.

Even if right now what it mostly did was ache.

They stayed where they were for five slow breaths; and then Suki's grip gentled, which meant Yue was allowed to sit up again, and Yue did so gratefully.

"Longer the next time," Suki warned, and then her gaze flicked toward the door—looking for Sokka, Yue thought, and swallowed down a laugh. It was sweet; and, more than that, it made her feel almost wistful. Suki was so very—_bold_, in everything she did: in the way she stood and the way she fought, the way she'd dared Father to refuse her and the way she touched Sokka whenever she felt like it. Suki did everything as though she had a right to do it, as though it had never occurred to her that she ought not to, or that anyone might rather she did not. Yue had been promised to _marry_ Hahn, and still she could not imagine sitting beside him at a feast and pressing her knee to his—surely it would not have done any harm, and yet Yue would never have dared to, even if she had wanted to.

Of course, at the last feast she had been to, she had cut the table in half and thrown it at Master Pakku, so perhaps she was being ungenerous with herself.

"I'm sure the meeting is nearly over," Yue said, smiling, and Suki shot her a rueful glance, acknowledging, but didn't quite smile back. There was something odd about it, Yue thought, and perhaps she ought to have let it go but she could not quite convince herself to. She looked at Suki a moment longer, considering. "Something is bothering you."

Suki looked away and sighed, obviously trying to decide what exactly she wanted to say; Yue flexed her feet, her toes, against Suki's ankles until Suki met her gaze again.

"Tell me."

"It's not—" Suki stopped, shook her head a little, and started again. "I'm—I'm glad this has all worked out. I just don't think it's worked out quite as well as Katara thinks it has." She paused and glanced at Yue, eyes narrowed. "You've noticed that the Council's never invited the rest of us to their meetings, right?"

Yue had, but she had not thought much of it. She shrugged, uncertain. "I do not know that I would have expected it. Katara is the Avatar, and Sokka is—"

"A boy?"

Yue blinked. Suki was looking at her intently but not unkindly, and, more importantly, was not wrong. "Yes—yes, I suppose that is what I would have said." She hesitated. "I told you how I came to join Katara, didn't I?"

Suki nodded.

"I know that Master Pakku was wrong," Yue said slowly, "but I still—I still find him in my head sometimes." She shook her head, and met Suki's gaze again. "I have no particular strategic skill to offer them, and I do not believe Toph would attend a meeting of the Council even if she were asked." _Boring_, Toph would say, and Yue could picture the look she would have on her face as she said it. "But I will say that I am not sure why they would choose to exclude you."

Suki raised her eyebrows, smiling. "Funny," she said thoughtfully. "Out of the three of us, the reasons I can think of for them to exclude me are the ones I thought made the _most_ sense."

Yue frowned at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that after seven years stuck doing nothing," Suki said, "they've finally recovered their king—their whole kingdom—from the Dai Li—"

Yue saw all at once what she meant. "—whose policies of inaction they, as men of war, must have greatly resented," she finished, nodding. "And who were granted their position in this kingdom's governance by Avatar Kyoshi."

"I understand exactly why they don't want me in there," Suki concluded. "But you—you're a princess, and Toph's a noblewoman."

Now it was Yue's turn to raise her eyebrows at Suki. "A princess with magical hair, from a far-away tribe on the very edge of the civilized world; and a short, blind noblewoman from some kingdom off to the south with which they share no border. I do not think either one of us looks to them like anything but a curiosity."

Her tone had gone very dry by the end, and when she had finished Suki laughed. "I suppose you're right," she said, and then smiled, looking much more like herself. "I am glad, though, that it's gone as well as it has. With the king, and the Council—and if they really can help Katara, then I don't mind if they don't like us. She's been so much happier. It's been good for her, I think, to have some of the weight taken off her shoulders."

"It has," Yue agreed, and smiled back. "And if we ask her what they've said, you know she will tell us."

"I do," Suki agreed. "Maybe we can start having meetings of our own in the afternoons. All right, come on," she added, holding out her hands; and Yue sighed, bracing herself, and took them.

.*.

They were performing the stretch for the third time—ten slow breaths, now, and they were halfway through the count when there were footsteps at the door.

"Hey, you guys—oh. Am I interrupting?" Sokka said.

Yue tilted her head up far enough to meet Suki's eyes; Suki was looking at her sternly, warningly, but a smile was already beginning to curl the corners of her mouth. "Not in the _least_," Yue said.

"Yue—" Suki's tone was three-quarters exasperation, but she didn't get any further before she started to laugh.

"We would be very pleased to take a walk with you," Yue added, bright.

"How did you know that's what I was going to—"

"That's what you _always_ want to do," Suki said, and then pointed a scolding finger at Yue. "We're coming back after and we're going to finish this."

"Of course," Yue agreed.

"When I'm done with you, you're going to be the warrior queen of the north," Suki said, as though it were a threat instead of a promise; and then she sprang up like it was nothing, like she'd only been resting anyway.

Yue eased her thighs together carefully, and worked her way to her feet with all the grace and speed of a tortoise stork.

"Sorry," Sokka said. "It's all these stupid meetings—I'm not used to sitting still that long, you know?"

It was perfectly true, Yue thought; but there was something in his voice, something about the way he said it, that made her pause and look at him more closely. He was—nervous? Not quite, Yue decided, but close to it: moving too much, shifting his weight, unsettled.

"You're not used to sitting still at all," Suki said—and her tone was very light, but when Yue glanced at her, she was looking at Sokka a little too intently. She had noticed it, too.

Suki was wearing her usual sash, but had removed her fans from it, to make the stretching motions easier and to keep anyone from being cut accidentally. She retrieved them from the floor and slid them back into place, and perhaps it was Yue's imagination but she seemed almost to stand differently when she had them. "Well, all right," Suki said, "let's go."

"I admire your enthusiasm," Sokka said, "but maybe you guys should also put your shoes back on?"

.*.*.*.

Sometimes Sokka only wanted to wander around the palace grounds; but today he headed right for the gate to the Upper Ring, and he was walking so fast it was kind of hard to keep up. Good thing they'd had enough time to warm up, Suki thought, or Yue's sore legs wouldn't have wanted to cooperate—and even as it was, keeping her reassuring grip on Yue's wrist meant Sokka nearly left them behind twice on the way there.

"Sorry, sorry," he said the second time, when he'd jogged back around a corner to find them.

"Did they give you a lot of good news," Suki said, "or a lot of bad news?"

"It wasn't—" Sokka said, and then stopped and sighed. "I just—want to talk to you guys about it."

Suki had thought of Sokka as a lot of things: as a threat, once, though it made her want to chuckle now to think she'd once tied him to a post; as a friend, gradually, the more times they had talked on the road, the more times he'd made her laugh, the more times she'd showed him a trick with her fans that he'd watched with wide, admiring eyes; and now, increasingly, as something else—as—as _dear_, which was still new enough that it sometimes took Suki by surprise. She'd already been fond of him by the time they'd reached the north, had decided she liked him enough to sit next to him and touch his hand and tease him, but it was getting—it was getting deeper, sometimes almost painful at unexpected moments, sometimes almost too much.

Looking at him now, there was that almost-pain, that twinge in her chest—like what she was feeling was too big, didn't quite fit inside her ribs. "You can," she said, and it came out funny, her throat too tight.

"You can always talk to us," Yue added from beside her, reaching out to touch Sokka's elbow for a moment, and Suki could have hugged her for managing to say it so clearly.

"I know," Sokka said, and smiled, and for a moment he was out from underneath whatever cloud the meeting had put him under.

The guards at the gate knew them by sight, these days; there were Dai Li agents there, too, but also palace guardsmen in plain old armor, and when the guardsmen bowed, so did the Dai Li. Sokka darted through the gate as soon as it was open, shouting, "Thanks, guys!" back over his shoulder, and then they were out in the wide main avenue of the Upper Ring.

"So," Suki said, when they'd gotten far enough away—they could still see the gate behind them, and of course the palace was visible from most of the Upper Ring, but they'd have to take a way longer walk to fix that. "What did happen in that meeting?"

"Nothing bad," Sokka said instantly. "Nothing bad—a bunch of the messengers we sent out have come back, and it sounds like probably most of the kingdoms are going to want to help, at least once we've actually told them what's going on. Also there was a bunch of administrative stuff at the beginning, but I think maybe I fell asleep during that part."

"And is that all?" Yue prodded gently, when Sokka didn't seem like he was going to keep talking.

"They said—they said some of the messengers had seen the fleet," Sokka said, and Suki didn't need to ask which fleet he was talking about—Yue didn't seem to either. "That maybe Katara and I would have time to go see our father."

"That's wonderful, Sokka," Yue said, beaming; but the expression on Sokka's face didn't seem to agree.

Suki remembered abruptly what had happened the last time this possibility had been raised. "You didn't fight again, did you?"

"No, no," Sokka said, shaking his head—and he didn't seem quite upset enough for that anyway, Suki thought. "No, I just—I didn't ever tell you what I saw back in that swamp, did I?"

The sudden change in subject made Suki blink in surprise, and she glanced at Yue to find that Yue had glanced at her at the same time, uncertain. "No," Suki said, "you didn't."

Sokka's steps slowed; and then after a moment he came to a stop entirely, and turned to look at Suki and Yue. "I was kind of young when they went," he said, "but I wasn't—I wasn't a _kid_, you know? I would've gone ice dodging in another few months if they hadn't left."

Suki had no idea what he meant—_ice_ dodging? What did that mean? His family threw ice at him until they hit him?—but Yue was nodding. "In the city, a boy can do any great service or meet any kind of challenge to earn his pike," she said, mostly to Suki, "as long as his father and the elders agree it is sufficient; but many of the clans who have come to us from the ice-fields will accept no other ritual but dodging."

"Well, of course not," Sokka said, sounding scandalized. "Anyway—I know Father wanted to keep me safe, and they couldn't have waited a few months just for me. But it still felt like—"

He cut himself off abruptly, and for a moment Suki thought it was only because he couldn't decide what word he wanted to use. But his gaze was going past her, and not in Yue's direction; and Suki turned to see what he was looking at and found herself gazing at the bowed head of the nearest of a group of six Dai Li agents.

"Forgive us for the interruption," the woman said, straightening. "You are the companions of the Avatar, aren't you?"

"You could say that," Sokka said—and his tone wasn't very friendly, but Suki didn't say a word to scold him for it. "Why?"

"The Avatar requires your presence," the woman said, cool.

There was a moment's silence; none of them moved, and Suki wasn't quite sure why, couldn't pinpoint what it was that made her wary, until Yue said—calmly, politely, and wholly disbelieving—"And so she sent—you?"

Because of course Katara would never, not in a thousand years. The king had been willing to let Long Feng keep his job, but if it had been up to Katara, Long Feng would never have set foot in the palace again—he'd been trying to keep her from doing her duty, which in the end meant he had been trying to keep her from ending the war, and that wasn't something Katara was ever likely to forgive or forget. And the Dai Li, all of them, had gone along with it, had carried out Long Feng's orders without question—Katara wouldn't have asked them to pass her a cup of water in the Si Wong.

"The Avatar herself did not ask," the woman acknowledged. "We follow the will of our king—"

"Oh, of course," Sokka said. "And just out of curiosity, when you say 'our king' do you actually mean the tall dorky guy with the glasses? Or do you maybe sort of really mean Long Feng?"

The agents behind the woman who was talking to them had started to spread out—to encircle them, Suki thought, to make it harder for them to run, and there were six of them, two apiece—

The woman sighed. "The will of our king as it should be," she admitted, "as it will be again once he has cast the unbalanced influence of the Avatar aside. We had hoped you would come quietly; but this is taking too long." She tilted her head—almost apologetically, Suki thought—and then raised her voice so the other Dai Li could hear. "Seize them."

All the Dai Li, even the woman who'd been talking to them, moved their feet almost as one—and Suki was no bender, but she'd spent enough time watching Toph and Katara practice that she knew an Earthbending stance when she saw one. Sure enough, the dark solid shapes that had been hanging at the agents' waists came flying at them; and with a split second to decide, Suki crouched and then threw herself into the air.

She hurtled over one pair of the stone things—hands?—sideways, and when she landed, she had her hands on her fan-handles; the second set of stone hands that had been aimed at her was already being redirected even as her feet came down. She hitched her fans up into her grip the wrong way up, solid iron hinge facing out instead of the knife-thin edge, and knocked both stone hands aside with sharp blows before either one could touch her.

"Not _again_," she heard Sokka cry somewhere off to the side—he didn't have his sword, didn't have his practice fans, and there wasn't any open water around for Yue, her pike still resting against the wall back in the sparring room—

Suki raised her fan-handles and smacked another stone hand away from her out of sheer reflex—they were _fast_, almost too fast to see coming, and she had to flip over another before she could spare the instant it took to look for Sokka.

He and Yue were pinned down—not by the stone hands that had been thrown at them, which were clamped around their arms, but by the paving stones themselves. The two of them were sunk nearly up to their knees, as though in mud: like they had been back in that courtyard with General Fong, Suki thought, except this time there was no Queen Yuanlin to smack the Dai Li on the shoulder and make them change their minds. Suki—Suki had jumped up, hadn't left her feet on the ground long enough—

As if the Dai Li had noticed the same thing, Suki felt the rock beneath her feet shift; she was lucky, so far beyond lucky, that Sokka had interrupted her in the middle of a session with Yue, because it would have been so much harder to leap like this if she weren't already prepared for it.

She landed harder than she'd meant to, off balance because she'd had to leap so fast—but the Dai Li were having trouble holding Sokka and Yue still, one of them shouting wordlessly for help, and the agent who had been about to launch himself at Suki turned away instead. Suki hefted one of her fans and caught Sokka's eye—she could throw one to him, if he could only get a hand free—

"No!" he shouted at her, as though he knew what she was thinking. "No, Suki—go! Go, you've got to go back and tell somebody—Katara, Li Chen—you've got to—"

For an instant, she hated him for it—for telling her to, for thinking she would. She was a Kyoshi Warrior, a leader; she'd never left any of her girls behind and she wasn't going to leave them either.

Except she had to. There were six Dai Li and only one of Suki; and Sokka and Yue were occupying most of the agents for now, but one good shove further into those paving stones and the Dai Li wouldn't need to concentrate anymore to hold them still. And if all three of them were taken—who would be left to warn Katara? She _had_ to.

The last agent who wasn't struggling with Sokka and Yue lunged at Suki, and Suki struck her sharply in the wrist with one fan and flipped the other fan around to slice at her face. The agent ducked away, and for a moment left a clear space—and Suki darted through it, past her, and then began to run.


	26. Beneath the Surface, Part 2

The streets of the Lower Ring were, as always, crowded and noisy and dirty; but these things did not irritate Zuko as they once had. Which should no doubt have made him ashamed—could he truly have grown _used_ to, _comfortable_ with, conditions as vile as these?—but he could not quite convince himself that he was.

He had always been taught to appreciate command, control, order: a flame cast from the hand that went where it was aimed; a dozen ships performing a single coordinated maneuver; a thousand soldiers with swords raised in salute, standing in straight lines. These were the things that meant you had power, that meant you were strong. And yet he looked around him and saw children chasing each other and shrieking, women at the fountain washing and bumping each other's elbows, a soldier of the city guard who did not even have a hand at his sword accepting a dumpling and tossing a coin across the seller's cart in return—"order" was not the word it brought to mind, but would order have been inherently better? Zuko was no longer certain. Father fought to rule the world because it refused to rule itself—because without rulership, there was no order, no balance, no true civilization. The world would be brought together beneath Father's fist, united, whole, and it would be better off that way; it would be, it must, or what was any of this for?

"—but he took it!"

Zuko blinked. Jin—he was not crying, only frowning, small fat face screwed up in a tremendous pout, and he was pointing accusingly at Zhiyang; Qingying was kneeling in front of the two of them, and the look on her face was brimming with fondness and annoyance, both at once.

"Then ask for it back," Qingying said, and then directed a stern and eloquent stare at Zhiyang.

"Give it back!" Jin said, stomping his foot.

The rice ball—it had to be about the rice ball Zhiyang was cradling in his narrow fingers, because he glared at Jin and held it closer to his chest.

"That isn't asking," Qingying murmured, singsong, and then changed tactics: "Why do you think he wants it?"

Jin considered this reluctantly. "'Cause it's good and he wants to eat it, too," he offered up, sighing.

"Then maybe you can share it," Qingying said, "and that way both of you get some."

Jin and Zhiyang eyed each other in a way that suggested they were not eager to pursue that particular course.

"Or," Qingying said, airy, "I can just take it and give it to Yanhong—" Who, Zuko noticed, was not in earshot—she and Lan had run ahead to the fountain, and were endeavoring to braid each other's hair at the same time, with fingers that were probably still rice-sticky.

"No!" Jin cried instantly. "We'll share, we'll share—we'll share, won't we?" he said to Zhiyang, who was, Zuko saw, already laboring to tear the rice ball in half.

The rice ball successfully shared, they raced off—no doubt to shove each other into the fountain, Zuko thought, which would surely make one or both of them cry again, but Qingying seemed to have patience beyond all reckoning.

She was levering herself up off the street, brushing off her knees, when he spoke without thinking: "You're—a good sister."

It was a hopelessly foolish thing to say, and he grimaced at himself for it; but she looked up at him and smiled, straightening. "I hope so," she said. "I—want to be."

"You haven't set them on fire," Zuko said, shrugging.

Qingying laughed—she thought he was joking, he realized after a moment. And why shouldn't she? Qingying at the worst Zuko had ever seen her had—what, spoken a little harshly? Had perhaps tugged on Yanhong's wrist too sharply—had grown tired of the noise and the closeness and the tension, and had hid for a while on the roof; that was all. What sort of word was _sister_, that it could hold both this girl and Azula within it? Involuntarily, Zuko remembered peering out at the Avatar from behind a blue-and-white mask, all those months ago: _he's my brother_, she had said, and then _I won't leave without him_.

He'd made a mistake, not laughing—or, well, no, Qingying wouldn't expect that of him; but he could have smirked, at least, as though something really were funny. But he hadn't. He'd looked away while he was thinking, and when he looked back, Qingying was watching him, quiet and intent.

"Did you have a sister?" she said—very low, and then she grimaced as if she hadn't meant to say it at all. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry, you don't have to answer—"

And if she hadn't said that, perhaps he wouldn't have; but as it was, he found himself saying, "Yes."

Qingying looked at him and waited, and something about the plaza at that moment—the sunlight, the noise all around them, the absolute certainty that no one was paying attention except Qingying—made it easy. Zuko drew a breath, let it out.

"Nothing like you," he said. "Nothing like me, either. Good at everything."

"Older?" Qingying offered, gentle.

"Younger," Zuko said—which was true, but he'd never thought of Azula that way, _little sister_, not really. She had always simply been Azula, and Zuko had been her elder but never her better. The royal sculptors had sometimes made little models to plan out their works—from plaster or wood so as not to waste good stone, with features half-placed; only ever a rough approximation of the true work to come, perpetually unfinished and utterly valueless. That was Zuko.

"You didn't like each other very much," Qingying guessed.

Zuko had no idea what expression ended up on his face, but whatever it was, it made Qingying laugh again; and if she knew the truth, he thought, she'd stop. A peasant girl, laughing at the prince of the Fire Nation—exile or no exile, he should have stopped her, should have set _her_ on fire rather than let her laugh. But he stood there and chose not to; and Father failed to appear in a sudden blast of flame to punish him for it.

"Well," Qingying said, still smiling, "I suppose you probably don't want three more, then. But for whatever it's worth, I heard what Aunt said to you this morning; and you _have_ three more, if you want them."

Zuko stared at her.

Qingying looked back at him, unwavering, and the smile softened, changed, but didn't go away. "I can hardly remember what it was like, without you and your uncle," she said. "I know you might have to leave again, if your duties to the queen take you away. But if that happens, I'll miss you. We all will."

"You will," Zuko repeated.

"Of course we will," Qingying said, calm and serious; and then all at once she grinned at him. "I suppose we'll get by," she added, and her expression became a parody of thoughtfulness, one finger raised to tap her chin. "Maybe we'll put a post in the corner, and I can paint eyebrows on it so it looks like it's glaring at us—"

"_Ow_!"

"No shoving!" Qingying shouted, turning toward the fountain—where a dripping-wet Lan was, in a righteous fury, about to drag Zhiyang into the water. "On the other hand, maybe you'd rather not have any sisters at all," she murmured, flashing Zuko one last smile; and then she was hurrying away toward the fountain, rolling up her sleeves and reaching for one of Zhiyang's flailing hands.

.*.

Qingying waded into the dispute—quite literally, stepping into the fountain herself to get Lan to let go of Zhiyang's ankles—and with a deftness Zuko could barely follow, got Zhiyang safely onto dry land and then lifted Lan out of the water and wrung her out, plaiting her wet hair and teasing her gently until she began to smile again.

Yanhong and Jin were both yawning by the time Qingying was done, sleepy with sunlight and all that sticky rice, and Qingying took Lan by the hand and scooped Yanhong up and onto her hip, and then looked at Zuko with her eyebrows raised. "Could you?"

She was not wrong to ask, Zuko thought, when her hands were occupied already—and besides, Jin was a lazy and stupid child, difficult to rouse. It would be easier to carry him than to deal with his complaining, to keep pace with his leaden feet. Zuko took a step nearer to the edge of the fountain where Jin was sitting; and Jin caught sight of him and smiled drowsily, reaching out with his small fat hands. "Li," he said, indistinct, and wiggled his fingers.

Zuko leaned down and picked him up, a hand at each of Jin's sides underneath his arms, and then copied Qingying as best he could, tucking Jin against his waist. Jin's hands were still wet with fountain water. "If you touch me, I will drop you," Zuko said, sharp.

"Okay," Jin agreed, yawning again halfway through the word, and promptly wound damp fingers into Zuko's collar.

Well—he had touched Zuko's shirt, then, not Zuko himself. Zuko hefted Jin a little higher, grudging, and turned to follow Qingying off down the street toward Pao's.

She was nearly at the edge of the plaza, and he only two steps behind her, when he saw them: three, robed in green, waiting. City officials, he knew—he had seen their like now and again in the streets of the Lower Ring—and the moment he met the gaze of the nearest of them, he knew they were there for him.

Someone had found out—that was his first thought. Someone had learned who they were, had recognized Uncle and his beard and his tea, the scar on Zuko's face; and now the king of Ba Sing Se meant to lock them up for it. To keep them captive, or even to trade them back to Father for a reprieve—unlucky king, Zuko thought, to have found the two people in the world Father wished most never to see again. Perhaps the city could buy itself mercy by offering to _keep_ them.

"Li?"

Qingying had noticed his sudden stillness—of course she had—and had stopped walking, turning to face him even as the city officials drew nearer. There were more of them behind her, Zuko saw, scattered at intervals around the plaza, as though they thought that he might run. But where was there to run to? Outside Ba Sing Se, there was Father, there was Azula; inside Ba Sing Se, he was the enemy. There was nowhere else to go, and Ba Sing Se, surely, was still the safer of the two.

"Li," Qingying said—more urgently, this time, glancing back and forth between Zuko and the city officials. Zhiyang and Lan were watching from a pace or two away, wide-eyed, and when Yanhong squirmed curiously, Qingying set her down, a hand still wrapped around her wrist, and frowned at the officials.

The nearest one was a man, green-eyed, with a long dark plait and his hands tucked into his sleeves. _Don't say it,_ Zuko found himself thinking helplessly, _don't say it_—he was surrounded by Earth Kingdom citizens, he should have been considering his own safety, but instead what he feared most was that the man would open his mouth and say _Prince Zuko_ where Qingying and Zhiyang and Lan would hear him. What would Wan Liu say to Jin, when Qingying whisked him back to safety and he asked, all innocence, _Who's Prince Zuko?_ What would they think of him—and why, why had it started to matter to him? Why couldn't he make it stop?

The official looked at him for a long moment, and whether it was because he saw something in Zuko's face or because he had been told to be discreet, what he said in the end was, "Sir."

"Who're you?" Jin murmured, bleary, from somewhere around Zuko's collarbone.

"A lucky servant of this great city," the man said, not unkindly, "who must do his duty. Sir: if you would come with us."

Perhaps he did not even know who he was arresting; surely if he had, he would have snatched Jin away, would have told the children to move aside to a safe distance, instead of standing there so patiently.

"He hasn't done anything wrong," Qingying said, "you have to know that—"

"I do only what is asked of me," the man said.

Qingying let go of Yanhong's hand long enough to touch Zuko on the arm. "It must be a mistake," she said.

He met her gaze without meaning to: she was entirely sincere, and he could not do anything in the face of it except nod.

"Li?" Jin said.

"You have to go with your sister," Zuko said, without looking down at him.

"But where—"

"Come on, Jin," Qingying said gently, and took him from Zuko with careful hands; he was staring at Zuko with round serious eyes, and Qingying turned him in her arms so he could keep doing it, damn her.

"Tell my uncle what's happened," Zuko said.

"Of course," Qingying said instantly. "Right away. Don't worry, Li—we'll sort this out, whatever it is. We'll get you back." She sounded utterly certain—of course she did, Zuko thought. No doubt she imagined that it was because of his face, his eyes; that the city did not know him for what he was, and that all he needed was "Mushi" and that queen's seal to set him free. She thought the officials did not understand him; and the officials thought she did not understand him; and after all that he had done, all that he had let himself become, perhaps he did not understand himself.

"Thank you," he let himself say, because—because she'd been kind, and because he _wanted_ to say it, whatever Father might have thought of him for it.

"Of course," Qingying said again, without hesitation, and she hitched Jin a little more tightly against her waist, reached for Zuko's shoulder with her free hand, and, for a moment, held tight.

.*.*.*.

"Come on! You can hit harder than _that_, sugar queen—"

"Can you tell me to pretend I'm punching you again?" Katara said. "I think that worked really well before."

It was a sign of how far they'd come, Katara thought, that Toph laughed instead of scowling. "I'll tell you anything you want if you straighten out those shoulders!" she said. "I can feel you hunching from here, it's ridiculous," and she turned, stomped a foot, and hurled a piece of the floor at Katara.

There was still a part of Katara that kind of wanted to duck, but Toph had mostly yelled that reflex away. She set one foot firmly underneath her instead, and waited, waited, until—there. Katara slammed her other foot to the floor; and a chunk of floor-stone heaved up in front of her and smashed Toph's rock up into the air.

It didn't hit the ceiling—the palace Earthbending rooms had really, really high ceilings for exactly this reason, along with loosely-set floors and extra-thick walls. Katara reached up for it and felt it, the energy in the stone for a moment an extension of the energy in her hands and arms, her spine, her feet; and then Katara pulled it down out of the air with one fist and slung it back at Toph with the other.

Toph didn't dodge—of course she didn't. She braced herself and tilted her head, listening, and then leapt up and punched in the same motion, and the rock shattered against her fist.

"Toph! That's part of the floor!"

Toph shrugged, flipping one shard of rock over with a bare toe. "I'm sure it happens all the time," she said, airy. "And it's not like they can't get more rock any time they want, right?" She sniffed and tilted her chin. "Anyway—that was better."

"Really?" Katara said.

"Better," Toph said, "not _good_—don't get too excited, here," which was just so—typical, Toph was the worst teacher ever, and Katara was about to tell her so when Toph's face changed: she stopped smirking and began to frown.

"Toph—?"

"Shh," Toph hissed, and flattened her feet against the floor, spreading her toes out—she was listening, feeling, but whatever she was getting must not have been clear enough, because after a moment she crouched and put her hands on the floor, too. "There's something happening," she murmured after a moment, still frowning. "Lots of people, their hearts—but they're just standing. Not in the hallway, but _somewhere_."

"Can you tell which direction?" Katara said, taking a step nearer; and that was when the ceiling fell in.

It took Katara a moment to realize that it hadn't done it on its own—she flinched down away from the noise and the tumbling stone, sheltering her head reflexively, and then Aang cried, "Duck!" and she did. Something shot over her head in a rush of air, and Katara looked up in time to see Toph flip a slab of rock up and over, crushing whatever it was against the floor—a glove? A glove wouldn't have crunched like that—

A piece of the ceiling had landed behind Toph, propped up by the wall into a steep slant; and a Dai Li agent, two, three, came hurtling down it. Everything became clear, all at once: they'd been waiting up there, they'd torn through the ceiling on purpose—Toph had felt them waiting but hadn't known where, with their vibrations coming down through all four walls—

"Watch out!" Toph shouted, before Katara could shout the same thing at her—Katara planted her feet and punched upward, hard, and the chunk of ceiling behind Toph rocked up to follow her hand, the Dai Li agents thrown backwards like they were on a bucking elephant buffalo. The nearest one toppled off the side toward Katara, and she could see, framed for just a moment against the pale green of his robes, the hand-shapes—stone, they had to be—that hung at his waist.

Toph had moved, too, and behind Katara there was a grinding of stone, a chorus of shouts; no stone hands hit Katara in the back, so whatever Toph had done must have worked. Katara didn't waste any time checking—she took the opportunity to cross the floor, instead, and grabbed Toph's elbow the moment she was near enough. "We have to get out of here," she said, and then stopped to yank a chunk of stone sideways into the agent who was trying to sneak up on Toph's other side.

"Yeah, I'm kind of getting that feeling myself," Toph said, slamming a foot into the ground—someone behind Katara yelped, and then there was a thud.

"Come on," Katara said, turning toward the door—but Aang was there, sweeping through the air toward her and shaking his head, eyes wide.

"There's more of them in the hallway," he said, "you'll never get out the door—"

"Then let's not use it," Toph said, blithe, when Katara relayed this. "You wanted to practice, sugar queen: here's your chance. Punch like you mean it." She slid a foot sideways, shoving two more agents away before they could touch her, and then she settled into a stance next to Katara and nodded once. Katara heaved the floor up underneath them, and Toph shoved their little island toward the wall furthest from the doorway; and Katara planted her feet, took a deep breath, and punched.

.*.

They went through two or three walls, Toph heaving the floor up each time to close the gaps behind them before the Dai Li could follow them through; and then they skidded into one last hallway in a shower of rock, Aang darting out overhead in a streak of blue light. Katara shoved their little island up against the hole in the wall, but it was stone, too, and the Dai Li that had come after them were all Earthbenders—it might take them some time to undo Toph's bending, but not that much.

A flicker of movement caught Katara's eye—not Aang, something green, near the end of the corridor they'd broken into—and Katara whirled and raised her fists.

"Most impressive, Avatar," Li Chen said, inclining her head.

"Li Chen," Katara said, relieved, and lowered her hands. "The Dai Li—they attacked us—"

Li Chen's face, already grave, turned graver; she didn't look surprised to hear it. "I came to this wing intending to tell you—two of the Council of Five have been found dead, and the other three cannot be located. I could not have told you I knew who was responsible; but I imagine that you can guess my suspicions."

Found _dead_—Katara stared. She hadn't liked the Dai Li because they'd lied to her, because they'd made themselves a nuisance and an obstacle and they'd done it on purpose; but they were Earth Kingdom, even if they were wrong about a lot of things, and they'd never quite managed that last leap to "enemy" in her head. Long Feng coming up with some stupid reason to try to arrest her and Toph, maybe thinking he could get the king on his side again—that was one thing. But if he'd really sent the Dai Li to kill the Council of Five—

"Awesome," Toph was saying beside her, blowing her bangs sideways with a huff of breath. "So let's get out of here before they do the same thing to us."

"We have to find Sokka first," Katara said immediately. "And Suki and Yue—they're probably still sparring—"

"We must not leave without the king," Li Chen said.

"Oh, come on!" Toph said. "Are you kidding? They sent like twenty agents just for us—they've probably got him _swimming_ in them."

Li Chen looked up at her, unmoved. "If we are ever to have a hope of stopping them," she said, "we will need the king."

Katara narrowed her eyes. It was probably true; but it didn't seem like quite enough to explain the tightness of Li Chen's knuckles where her hands were wrapped around each other, the sheer rock-solid _insistence_ in her face. "And he's your little brother," Katara said after a moment, gently.

Li Chen glanced at her, and then looked away and let out a slow breath. "And he's my little brother," she agreed, almost wryly; and then she looked back at Katara and spread her hands, all humor gone. "Please."

Katara looked at Toph.

"Oh, what, like you think I'm going to say no?"

"He's going to slow us down," Katara said.

"Yeah, he is," Toph said. "Let's go get him."

Katara glanced up the corridor they were in, and down—she'd gotten pretty good at finding her way around in the palace, but it was still huge, and they'd come out a completely different side of the Earthbending room than usual. "It'll be easier if we can find Sokka and the others first," she said, "so there are as many of us as possible—"

She was interrupted by a shout, somewhere around the corner nearest them. "Oh, great, more of them," Toph muttered, jumping down from their rock to the floor of the corridor—but if it was more Dai Li, it didn't sound like things were working out for them. There were a couple more shouts and then what sounded like a cry of pain, a thud.

"Aang," Katara said, but Aang had to have guessed what she was going to say—he was already moving, hurrying through the wall to cut around the corner and waving absently down at Katara.

"I'll go see," he said, and then was gone.

Another couple of shouts, a crunch of stone and a groan. Katara reached out and made the stone under her feet lower her down next to Toph, trying to stay quiet—if it was Dai Li, they didn't need to give themselves away, or at least not any more than they already had.

But the next thing she heard coming around the corner was Aang's voice; and whatever he was saying was indistinct, but he didn't sound unhappy.

"—Suki, it's Suki!" was the first thing she caught as he came back through the wall—and Suki rounded the corner a moment later. She had her fans raised, but not spread; she was holding them the wrong way around, Katara realized after a moment, handles out.

"Katara," Suki said, and she sounded relieved—but not happy, not happy at all, and no one else followed her around the corner.

"Suki," Katara said. "Suki, what happened? Where's Yue? Sokka—"

"Sokka came to find us," Suki said. "We went walking in the Upper Ring—there were Dai Li at the gate, that must be how they knew. They knew we'd gone out there, they knew we weren't with you, and they took the opportunity. They've—" She stopped and swallowed; her hands tightened on her fans. "They've turned against the king because he's listening to you, and they—I was the only one who had anything to fight them with. They've got Yue and Sokka."

"Then we have to get them back," Katara said immediately.

"The Dai Li will not hold them inside the palace," Li Chen said, laying a gentle hand against Katara's elbow. "It is not safe to stay here, and may not be for some time—you should collect whatever you need most from your rooms, and we must retrieve Kuei; and then we must get away from here, because if we too are imprisoned then we can help no one."

Katara squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want Li Chen to be right, but that probably meant she was—this was their best chance to get the king out, after all, and if they left the palace now, who knew whether they'd be able to get back in for him later? They had to do it now.

"The sparring room," Toph said quietly. "Which one were you using?"

"The corner one," Suki said—there were two that were fairly close to the rooms, which Suki and Yue had started calling "the corner one" and "the long one" days ago.

"You guys go get our stuff," Toph said.

"Toph, we don't have time," Katara said, shaking her head; but of course Toph didn't listen.

"Yue always takes her pike with her when you guys practice," Toph said, crossing her arms and tilting her chin up. "It's still there, right?"

"Should be," Suki admitted.

"Her dad gave her that," Toph said. "We're not leaving it here. You guys go get our stuff—I'll meet you there, and then we can go kidnap the king. Okay?"

Katara swallowed a sudden ridiculous urge to laugh, and touched Toph's elbow instead. "Okay," she said. "But don't break down every wall you come across—we don't need to make it any easier for the Dai Li to find us."

"You just don't want this to be any fun at all, do you?"

* * *

><p>"Where is Long Feng?"<p>

"He will be here shortly, Your Highness," Chang Da said, as he had the last three times he had been asked, and he turned and bowed low. The king was still the king, even if he was also the reason all this had been necessary; and he sought Long Feng's counsel, after all, so perhaps he could indeed throw off the influence of the Avatar, given time.

"So you've said," the king observed with a huff. "If I'm truly in as much danger as you say, what can he be attending to that can possibly be of greater importance? And after all the times he's chastised me for not attending to my personal safety! It really is too much."

"No doubt he is securing the palace and grounds as we speak, Your Highness," Chang Da said, returning to his previous stance: feet planted, head up, facing the vast doors that led to the throne room. There were already Dai Li lining the walls, and more on the way—and they guarded not only the doors, but the walls, the ceiling, the floor, for who knew which the Avatar might choose to attack? She was not Dai Li; she had not spent years advancing through the ranks, trained by the best Earthbending masters Ba Chang had to offer. But she was still dangerous, and the Grand Secretary had preferred to overestimate her rather than underestimate her.

"This is ridiculous—what did you even say it was this time? Separatists? Anarchists? Moral degenerates?"

"Your Highness," Chang Da began, and he had only just started to turn around again when it happened: the faintest sound, a barely audible scrape of stone as though against a single shoe, and—a breeze?

In a room with its doors closed and barred.

Chang Da whirled, already shouting, to face the space where throne and king had been a moment ago—the _empty_ space, where there was now nothing but a gray flat slab of stone.

.*.*.*.

"Got him!" Toph said.

"Oh, my," said the king.

Even from a few steps away, the vibration of settling stone made him ring clear as a bell to Toph. He was clutching his hat with one hand and one arm of his throne with the other—they hadn't been able to come up with a way to warn him. They were just lucky he hadn't screamed, Toph thought.

"Sorry, Your Highness," Katara said quickly, bowing. "We couldn't think of any way to get to you—"

"—so we brought you down to see us instead," Toph said.

They'd gotten everything they needed from their rooms, and Toph had retrieved Yue's pike from the sparring room without any trouble—or at least not more trouble than she could handle. It had been Li Chen's idea to get out by going beneath the palace. Toph had brought up the part where she really didn't have enough hands to keep the rest of them from hurting themselves in the dark; but Li Chen had told them they wouldn't even need a lantern, and she'd been right. The rock underneath the palace was full of weird chunks of crystal; it had made Toph think of embroidery, kind of, the way their footsteps had rippled out through the regular stone and then struck them, _ping ping ping_—like running a finger along a thread and hitting a row of beads. Apparently they glowed, too, and Katara said something about having seen them before, in the Cave of Two Lovers down south. Li Chen had picked one up and so had Suki, and obviously Toph couldn't exactly say for sure how bright they were, but nobody had tripped on anything since.

"It's not going to take them very long to figure out that we pretty much just yanked you through the floor," Toph added. "We closed it up after you, but that won't slow them down much. We need to get moving."

"Slow _who_ down?" the king said, letting go of his hat at last to slap his hand decisively against his throne. "Just what exactly is going on here?"

Of course nobody had told him anything—or at least not anything true. Why would they, when they could just keep him shut up in the palace and make him think whatever they wanted? At least Toph had had the arena. The king hadn't even gone outside by himself until Katara came along.

"The Dai Li," Li Chen said, quiet. "They will not let us leave the palace grounds without a fight."

The king shook his head. "Not this again—"

"Listen to me," Li Chen said.

She didn't shout, didn't even say it especially loudly, but there was—there was stone in it, Toph thought, stone inside, even though Li Chen wasn't an Earthbender at all.

"Li Chen—"

"Whatever they told you," Li Chen said, "it was a lie. They have killed the Council of Five, they have killed half the palace guard, and they will not let you leave this place if they can help it."

"Impossible," the king said; but he was leaning toward Li Chen uncertainly, and his heart had started to pound. The word came out not like something he believed but like something he was saying from memory.

"Long Feng has always said he would do anything for this city," Li Chen said, "and you have always believed him. Why do you doubt it now?"

"But that isn't—Li Chen," the king said helplessly. "Why would he—"

It was totally understandable that it would be hard for him to really get it, Toph knew that. But if the Dai Li caught them while they were still trying to talk him through it, it wasn't going to matter whether he ended up believing them or not. "Look, seriously, we really don't have time for this," Toph said. "If we get out of here now and you find out we were wrong, then everything will be fine and you can go right back in and give Long Feng a hug."

The king didn't move.

"Kuei," Li Chen said, quiet.

It took Toph a moment to realize she was talking to the king—she'd hardly ever used his name in front of them. But the king didn't yell at her for it, or tell them to put him back in the throne room. He just sat there.

"I do not know what to think," he said at last, "but I suppose I will find out the truth soon enough," and then—finally!—he stood and stepped down from his throne. "Now what?"

"Now we get away before they catch us," Toph said, and knelt down to jam her hands into the stone at her feet. "And then we can—"

She stopped talking without even really meaning to, frowning down at her wrists.

"Toph?" Katara said, behind her.

Toph ignored her, just for a moment, and shoved her fingers in deeper, trying to figure out what it was that was bothering her. There was—there was something wrong, something funny about the stone underneath them. Sometimes, like with the crystals, there were veins of some other kind of rock, or hunks of metal, that felt all different when she touched them; but this wasn't like that. A few inches past her fingertips, everything just seemed to stop. "There's something here," Toph said, and she curled her fingers in and pulled the stone up with her hands like it was a rug. She tossed the rock she'd ripped up away and dropped through the space it had left, and the instant she landed again, she almost wished she hadn't.

They'd left a rough tunnel stretching out behind them in the direction they'd come from, just tall enough to walk through if you didn't mind hunching a bit—they'd been in kind of a hurry, so they hadn't really taken the time to make it pretty. But the tunnel Toph was in now wasn't like that at all.

It was huge, for one thing. The king wasn't even going to have to take off his hat to walk around in here. And it was solidly built, smooth-sided, with a level floor—nothing anyone had Earthbent in a hurry or an emergency, not something an escaping unit of palace guardsmen would have left behind.

Maybe it was part of the palace; but there wasn't any water running through it or anything, whether for heat or for washing or for anything else. Toph wouldn't necessarily have put it past Ba Sing Se to be storing royal _air_, but—

"This should not be here," Li Chen said, somewhere over Toph's head.

"I was kind of afraid you might say that," Toph said.

.*.*.*.

A couple of tugs and a crunch of stone, and they had a reasonably smooth ramp down into the tunnel Toph had found. Katara was the last one down, Suki ahead of her with one of the crystal lights, and she stared into the long echoing dark of the tunnel and wanted to shiver.

"There are escape tunnels and stuff, right?" Toph was saying somewhere ahead of her. "For the royal family?"

"There are," Li Chen agreed. "And most of the palace maps do not include them; but there is one that does, the one that was used to plan them out. And this tunnel is not on that map."

"Then who built it?"

Nobody wanted to answer Suki's question—the best answer was probably some really paranoid king, maybe at the start of the War, but one of the worse answers was the Dai Li, and they all knew it. Maybe this was even some kind of trap, Katara thought. And maybe the Dai Li didn't know they were down here yet, but soon enough, they were going to—

"Katara!"

It was Aang—he'd gone up through the palace floor, to keep an eye on the Dai Li while Toph opened up a space for the king's throne and pulled him down. Now Aang was drifting down halfway through the rock, not bothering at all with the ramp, and his glowing face was tense with urgency.

"Katara, they're coming—they're not here yet but they're on their way down—"

"It doesn't matter," Katara said to Suki quickly. "It doesn't matter who built it—it's here and we need to not be. We have to get Yue and Sokka—"

Suki shook her head. "We have to regroup," she said. "We don't even know where they are, and we can't carry all this stuff around with us while we look for them."

It was a fair enough point. Katara was carrying her own pack and Sokka's, and Suki had Yue's things slung over her free shoulder and Yue's pike in her hand—Toph had needed both hands free to bend all the rock underneath the king's throne out of the way.

"And we need somewhere safe to leave you guys," Toph added, tilting her chin toward Li Chen and the king. "I'm guessing the best way to keep Your Highness safe probably isn't going to be bringing you along while we break into some Dai Li prison."

"The university—"

"We cannot go to the university," Li Chen said. "Long Feng knows very well that you stayed there for a time. It is surely one of the first places the Dai Li will look for you, when they cannot find you within palace grounds."

"And it's definitely the first place they're going to look for her," Toph said, hooking a thumb at Li Chen. "Think about it, Katara—"

"Then where?" Katara said, more loudly than she'd meant to. "Where else can we go?" The tunnel floor was solid level stone, but it might as well have been summer ice cracking away beneath her for all the steadiness she felt. This morning she'd been sitting in a Council meeting, thinking everything was so well-settled that she might as well go visit Father, and now—the Dai Li were after them, they'd stolen the king right out of his throne room; the palace wasn't safe, the university wasn't safe; Sokka and Yue were _gone_, taken, and if Katara couldn't get them back—

"Actually," Toph said, slow and thoughtful, "I think maybe I know a place."

* * *

><p>Mikama took a deep breath and pressed her forehead against the wall—or tried to, except all she got for it was the dull clank of her helmet against metal and a lock of hair crushed into her eyes.<p>

They had developed a rotation to care for their Earth Kingdom prisoners—to share the responsibility, certainly, and to keep the prisoners from getting too good a look at any one of them in particular. But also, Mikama thought, because they all absolutely hated doing it, and not just because it meant putting on a Fire Nation helmet.

They had talked, again and again, about letting the prisoners go, and if there had been any simple way to get them safely off the ship, to make sure no one would notice their absence or come for them and not find them, Hakoda would have ordered it done days ago. If there were a way for them to get the ship out as a whole, with the prisoners aboard, that would be even better. But none of them had yet been able to come up with a plan that was solid enough, something that would conceivably end in some way other than their deaths. And in the meantime, the pretense had to be maintained, and the prisoners needed to be cared for. There was no way around it.

And there were plenty of reasons to hate it. Bato did not like it—partly because none of the Fire Nation helmets fit him well, but much more because of what the helmet represented. He had always been a straightforward man by nature, honest; and covering himself in the uniform of the enemy to trick that enemy was tactics, but doing it to trick allies—that was not the same. Even though it was necessary, Mikama could see that it felt to him like a lie, and he hated it.

Ukara hated it because it was not practical enough for her. Oh, they had managed well enough for the past ten days, but that was because they were lucky, not because it was a good plan. Sooner or later, someone would make a mistake—would use the wrong word for a part of the ship or for one piece or another of Fire Nation armor, would call Hakoda by his blatantly Water Tribe name instead of remembering to say "sir", and then what? No, she did not like it at all; and every time it was her turn to go below and ladle out water and rice porridge, Mikama could see her mouth go flat and thin.

Takka hated it because of the risk—of course every moment they spent on this ship, in this sea, surrounded by this fleet, was full of risk, but this was even worse. When he was sent down, it was he who posed the risk, his every word and action where the prisoners could hear and see him; and he was a man upon whom that thought weighed heavily.

On and on and on—Tima hated it, Akkaro hated it, Pakura and Soshori—Hakoda did not have to do it, he was supposed to be their commanding officer, but if he had, he would have hated it. _Mikama_ hated it: it was uncomfortable, stressful, unpleasant. How could she not?

But today it was her turn. She straightened up, swallowed, and turned the small metal wheel that would let her open the door.

The ship was small, and had a small brig—there were individual cells, but all next to each other, and only barred, not walled, so every prisoner could see and speak to every other. The bars were metal; if they had been made to hold a Firebender here, they would have had to post a constant guard. They were lucky, really, to have been given Earthbenders instead.

And they were Earthbenders—or three of them were, at least. Mikama had seen them, flicking stray pebbles they had found against the walls without touching them, or to each other, simply to keep their minds occupied. The other two might only have declined to join in; she could not be certain.

There were no pebbles flying around today. Two of them were sitting, three lying down on the narrow cots built into each cell, and all five of them looked at her when she came through the door.

"Water," she said shortly—not unkindly, but like a woman who had better things to do and would rather be doing them. The first day, she had tried much too hard to be gruff; it had been half nerves and half sheer uncertainty, trying wildly to guess what Fire Nation soldiers might sound like when they were not killing anyone. She was better at it now.

The prisoners had a bowl apiece, and that also metal—if she were serving them a meal, they would get the food first, and then water once they had emptied their bowls. But that was morning and evening; at midday, she only had to give them water.

They knew the routine by now, and by the time she had pried the top off the water barrel, there were five bowls on the floor. She collected them and filled them, and this part she did not mind—it was almost soothing, the steady rhythm of it. Four full scoops of the water-dipper filled a bowl, and then she edged it away and filled the next.

But then she had to give them back. Snatching an empty bowl from the floor was easy; but when they were full, Mikama had to move slowly so as not to spill them, and she could only carry one at a time. The leftmost prisoner had looked at her strangely the first time she had knelt down on the floor and set his full bowl down for him, sliding it back through the gap in the bars. But she hadn't been able to decide how else she ought to do it.

At least now he only watched her with narrowed eyes, instead of gaping. She set his bowl on the floor and pushed it to him with a scrape of metal, and he leaned down and took it and never stopped watching her.

The second man and the third man were easy—they were the ones she hadn't seen doing any Earthbending. They were both tall and quiet, maybe brothers; and they both tended to mostly keep their eyes on the floor. She slid them their bowls, one and then the other, and they nodded to her in thanks without ever looking up.

The fourth man was narrow and unpleasant—even the other prisoners seemed to think so. The first time Mikama had had to take her turn at this, he had spat on her when she knelt to push his bowl back to him; the man in the third cell had glared at him and then had pointedly apologized to her for it, which was the only time he'd spoken in Mikama's hearing. But there was no spitting today. Mikama pushed him his bowl, and he sneered at her through the bars and made no move to take it.

The man in the last cell was the most difficult of them, for all that he'd never spat on anyone. He'd shouted at them a lot during the first few days, slammed his hands against the bars and demanded to be let go; he did not do it so much anymore, but he liked to pace restlessly. He was badly suited to captivity. Today he was seated by the gap in the bars—he'd been sitting up even before she came in, and had stayed there the whole time she was dipping water.

He watched her intently when she brought his bowl to him; perhaps he had already decided what he would do or perhaps he simply took advantage of the moment, but either way it happened. She pushed his bowl in perhaps a little further than she ought, and before she could pull her hand back, he had grabbed it, quick as a strike of lightning.

She tensed and pressed her free hand against the bars, bracing and leaning away—but he didn't break her wrist, didn't try to grab through the bars for her hair or the collar of her uniform. Mikama almost met his gaze by mistake, but when she was this close it would not do well to let him get too good a look at her eyes. "Let go," she said, sharp, and he did.

"You did not burn me," he said, almost accusingly, as she straightened up and backed away.

The other four were staring at her, too. Were they suspicious—enough to say something to someone on the ship that would come to get them? Or simply hoping to escape—trying to work out how many Firebenders they would have to face to do it? "I do not need bending to serve the Fire Lord," Mikama said, turning away to reach for the water barrel so none of them could see her face; it felt so utterly ridiculous to say that it almost made her want to smile.

"I suppose not," the man said, after a moment.

Mikama jammed the lid back onto the water barrel, and took a deep breath. Ukara would have the evening shift; Mikama would have to tell her to be careful of the fifth man.

They were trapped in the middle of a Fire Nation fleet, in the middle of a war, next to a city they could not warn, with prisoners they could not free. They needed an escape route, a distraction, both; this endless waiting could not last, _something_ was bound to give, and when it did they were all probably going to die. Ukara kept saying Mikama had nothing to smile about—but at least, Mikama thought, at least after this she would not come up on the rotation again for three whole days.

She grinned down at the door-wheel, and wondered what the prisoners would think if she started to laugh.

* * *

><p>Yin stared down at the brush in her hand and wondered how it was that now—<em>now<em>, of all times—her head should find itself empty of words.

The orders were away, copied and stamped and sealed; she could not have done otherwise. Even putting aside the chance that she would have been found out too early if she had not sent them, it would not have been fair. She was a sub-admiral, that was true, and had been given the authority to order men and women to their deaths—men and women who had _agreed_ that there were things worth being ordered to their deaths for, because they believed that they and their commanding officers had the same essential definitions of what those things were. To change those definitions without warning, without giving them the chance to agree or disagree—to not even ask, but to _make_ them die, for an idea they hadn't even had the chance to consider—

No. She could not present every single sailor in her fleet with this choice, it simply wasn't possible, but she could at least allow her squadron commanders to make their decisions with clear eyes. The orders had been sent on. Kishen had taken them away to be recopied and had let her know when it was done.

And now—now she only needed to—what? To ask them to consider whether they wouldn't perhaps like to give their fellow sailors the chance to set them on fire? And for what? Yin could not afford the luxury of illusion. There would still be death, there was no doubt of it. Oh, she would not face every ship in the South Yellow Sea; refugees from Ba Sing Se would flee toward the Serpent's Pass, most likely, hoping to cross more quickly than the ferries, which would no doubt be overtaxed in any case. Only the ships within range would even be permitted to fire, in the end—but that still meant that she set herself against a hundred ships at least. Even if every ship under her command chose to follow her in this, she would still be at a disadvantage, and the catapult fire—what could she do? Try to make the missiles hit her ships instead? Have her Firebenders drag them down into the sea? She would never be able to stop them all.

Yin gazed at the brush, and then the page. It would be honest, at least, to write that. _Turn against your nation, your king, your fellow soldiers; lose or destroy your own life forever, for the sake of people you have never met and cannot hope to wholly save even if you try, because it is what I think is best—_

"Sir?"

Kishen said it as though it were the third or fourth time, and perhaps it had been. Yin set her brush back down, slanting it into the well of the inkstone, and turned her head to glance at him inquiringly.

He had closed the door to the bridge behind him, and now that she thought about it she felt she could almost remember having heard the sound. He was standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back, and he was looking at her with quiet amusement. Not enough to be rude or to make her want to get angry—only enough to make her aware that she had been sitting alone in the bridge staring tragically at a blank sheet of paper, and that it was indeed a little bit ridiculous.

"You seem to be having some trouble, sir," he said.

Because it was Kishen, she let herself sigh. "I don't know how to say it," she said.

Kishen raised his eyebrows. "How to request their presence on the ship, sir?" he said. "Because that is the only thing you were willing to commit to paper, this morning—"

"And when they come," Yin said, "as I have asked them—what then?"

"Then you will say to them what you said to me, sir."

Yin shook her head slowly, rolling the handle of the brush back and forth between her fingers. It seemed like the sort of thing that ought to be done _well_—but what could ever be the proper way to ask for the impossible, to ask for a thing no one had the right to ask for?

There was quiet for a moment; and then Kishen shifted a little nearer, so that his forearm almost brushed her shoulder. "Are you so very certain, sir," he said, low, "that you are the only one?"

Yin tilted her head and looked up at him. "And what are the odds that they all are reading my orders as we speak," she said, "and thinking of me what I thought of Paozun?"

"Perhaps not all of them," Kishen conceded, quiet. "But there may be some. You sent them the orders because you wanted them to have a choice, and perhaps they will still make that choice the same way you did even if they think they are alone—but they aren't, and it is better that they know it." He hesitated for a moment, looking away, and then met her gaze again and smiled a little. "Not everyone is as brave as you are, sir."

"As stupid as I am, you mean," Yin said; and she expected the smile to widen, but instead it vanished entirely.

"No, sir," Kishen said, very low. "That isn't what I mean at all."

He bowed and then turned and walked away, opened the hatch to the bridge and closed it quietly behind him, all without looking at her again. She stared at the hatch for a moment after he had gone, and then turned back, picked up her brush, and began to write.

.*.

It was not unusual for a fleet commander to invite subordinates to dine aboard a flagship, especially on the eve of a day when there was likely to be action. Ancient convention, to eat well the night before a battle—to go to your death, if that was what waited for you, full and fat and happy. Some soldiers liked to say it meant you would be born full and fat and happy into your next life; Yin had always thought it simply made sense. Fighting a war was difficult enough—why would anyone want to do it on an empty stomach?

She had them brought to the bridge; she had phrased the invitation so that they would come early, for what they expected would be a dull but necessary discussion of the state of the fleet, the strength of their armaments, the logistics of tomorrow's maneuvers. Supper would come later, and perhaps a little drinking. Not enough to leave them ill, no officer would risk such a thing—but all told, their command staff would not be surprised to see them back early tomorrow morning rather than tonight. No one would ask any questions, or at least not until it was too late.

Arun was the last one in; Yin followed him through the hatch with Kishen a step behind, and then Kishen closed the door behind them. There was murmuring, shuffling, a quiet laugh, as the six of them seated themselves around three sides of the table, and then Yin stepped up to the remaining side and they all went quiet.

There was no point in talking around it, now that she had them here. Yin took a deep breath, let it out, and then said, "I lied to you, and I apologize. I did not bring you here for any of the reasons I gave you."

There was a shift in the air, somehow, in the quality of the silence; but none of them leapt up and ran for the door. Arun looked at her inquiringly, and Chan Dan and Yen Li exchanged uncertain glances. Nusha's face was blank, impossible to read. Ozan simply looked confused; Baoyang was the only one who was frowning.

"Sir?" Arun said, after a moment.

"The things I wish to say to you are not safe things to say," Yin admitted. "From a certain perspective I suppose they are treason, although it is for the sake of the Fire Nation that I say them. If I say the things I wish to say and you do not agree with them, no harm will befall you—I'll swear to that on anything you like. But you will not be allowed to leave this ship until morning."

"You can't be serious!" Baoyang said. "Sub-Admiral—"

"Orders were sent to you this morning," Yin said. "Unless you have gravely neglected your duties, they have been passed on to your command staff, who will prepare for them to be carried out even in your absence. You will not be accused of dereliction of duty—unless, of course, you genuinely choose to be derelict, which is precisely what I have asked you here to discuss." She set her hands flat against the table and looked at each of them in turn. "I wished to be as fair as I could," she said. "This seemed like the best way."

"The best way?" Ozan said, sounding bewildered.

He did not get any further before Baoyang slammed his hands against the table. "The _best_ way would be to obey the orders you are given! Are you mad?"

There was a moment's silence—and here, Yin thought, this was the tipping point. This was the moment when they might all decide she _was_ mad, unless she could convince them that it did not have to be so clear-cut as Baoyang made it sound; but the words caught in her throat. How could she ever explain? How could she ever expect them to stand where she stood, when it had taken her months and months, a thousand different moments, a hundred different choices, to get here herself?

And then Arun spoke. "_Bad_ orders," he said, quiet but certain, to Baoyang. He met Yin's gaze and lifted his chin, and she knew he had decided.

"Bad?" Baoyang spat, looking incredulous. "Are you listening to yourself? Orders don't _come_ in good or bad, followable or unfollowable. They're _orders_—and we are soldiers. What can there possibly be to discuss?"

"There is always a choice," said Nusha evenly.

"A _choice_—"

"There _is_ a choice," Yin said to Baoyang, before he could say any more. "It is only that you look at that choice and see one half of it as inconceivable, unfathomable, so that it does not look like a choice at all. I see it the same way; but I am looking at the other half."

Baoyang stared at her for a long moment, silent, and then began to shake his head. "I like you well enough, sir," he said slowly. "You're straightforward and you're careful, and you've been a good commander. But I can't—I can't follow you where you're going."

"And that is fair enough," Yin said, inclining her head. "You are not wrong to say that we are soldiers, that we have been given orders and are expected to follow them; and I will not punish someone who is not wrong."

She turned her gaze to Ozan, next to Baoyang; he still looked mostly baffled, but he met her eyes and shrugged uncomfortably, shifting in his chair. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, "I—I don't think I can—"

"Fair enough," Yin said again, and then, to him and Baoyang both, "I still cannot let you go until the morning, and you may as well stay here as anywhere else aboard this ship. Admiral Paozun will surely ask you for an accounting of our actions when it is all over, and by then it will be for the best if you are able to give him one."

Nusha was next; she looked back at Yin with calm dark eyes, considering, and then said, "I don't know, sir. I would like to hear what you propose to do before I decide."

Yen Li, beside her, glanced at Nusha and then at Yin and then at Arun, and drummed her fingers for a moment against the table. "No one's actually said it," she said, "but I assume we're not here about being ordered to run catapult drills. And I hadn't thought—I suppose I hadn't thought as far ahead as you have, sir, but when I read the princess's orders, I thought—" She pressed her fingers flat against the table and bit her lip. "I—I didn't enlist in the Navy to do things like that."

Chan Dan shook his head and then, startlingly, laughed. "At the absolute best," he said, "I hoped you were going to tell us we'd be off away from the coast, or maybe heading back down the river—that it wasn't going to be us. I hadn't even imagined you'd say anything like this."

Down the river—Yin hadn't even considered it, hadn't even thought about trying to get away instead. "I should tell you now," she said slowly, "that I—it is only if you do not wish to do what I ask that I can guarantee no harm will come to you. I do not know what will happen to us, or what will become of us after we have done this if we are not already dead."

"After we've done what, sir?" Arun said, without even batting an eye; and Yin leaned forward over the table and told them.

* * *

><p>There were three left.<p>

There had been six, to start with; the first two were probably still in the back room on the floor, and the third had only just finished sliding down the wall Iroh had kicked him into.

Iroh had not fought Earthbenders for a long time—had hoped never to do it again, in fact, and it felt like losing something, like surrender, to admit to himself how quickly and easily it had come back to him. Earthbenders did not dodge, they were not taught quickness. It was a trap many benders fell into: the simple assumption that just because stillness or speed or attack was the essence of their element, that was also the only way it could be used.

And these, like all Dai Li, had been trained with a particularly conservative Earth philosophy—in all ways, not just in bending. They had spoken to him when they first entered Pao's in precisely the same way they fought him now, without thoughtfulness or flexibility or even any particular caution. He might very well have gone with them if they had had an even slightly more delicate touch; but as it was they had walked up and told him he was under arrest. They would not tell him what complaint had been lodged against him or who might have lodged it, and they had called him "you" and "peasant" but not the title this city knew him best by—and that, in the end, was the thing he had not been able to let go of.

If the Dai Li knew who he was, they had no reason to hide it, and if they did not know, what were they arresting him for? They had been told to do it, he inferred, either by someone who did know who he was but had not wanted it shouted across the city; or by someone who did not know who he was but wanted an old Fire Nation man for something, perhaps even one they thought would not be much missed. Neither option boded well, and so the conversation had ended with two of them on the floor and one kicked into a wall.

And now there were three left.

The two nearest both launched stone fists at him; and Iroh ducked low and then darted in, sweeping a foot out. It was as quick and as deft as an old tea-man could make it, and these were as conservatively taught as the others: neither of them were expecting it. One managed to stumble back a step, out of range, but he caught the other just below the knee, and the woman toppled with a shout and landed hard. If he was lucky, she'd struck her head on the floor, and it would take her longer to steady herself and get back up than it would take him to deal with the remaining two.

The one who had stumbled went back another step and then recovered his balance, just in time for Iroh to deliver a solid strike to his side. He curled over Iroh's fist, gasping, and Iroh brought his free arm down over the man's back and knocked him to the floor.

And the third—Iroh lifted his head to look for her, an instant too slow, to find that she had chosen her moment well. She had aimed her stone hand not for his wrist but for his ankle, and it clamped his foot in place with a thunk and a scrape. She was already moving again, this time to hurl a chair at him, and he knocked it away with a short blast of flame—he would not set her on fire, not for anything, but he felt less strongly for the chair.

He lost sight of her for a moment behind the chair and the flames, and there was a sound—a shattering of crockery?

The chair clattered to the floor, the fire died away with a whoosh; and Iroh looked at the Dai Li agent on the ground, at the shards of pottery scattered around her, and then at Qingying, standing over her, with half a teapot still clutched in her hands.

"Mushi," she said, wide-eyed, and swallowed.

"Qingying," he said. The stone hand had come loose from his ankle, with the woman no longer bending it there, and he stood.

Zhiyang was clutching Qingying's elbow, and Lan, behind him, had Yanhong and Jin each by the wrist; but there was no sign of Zuko, and so even before Qingying spoke again, Iroh knew what she was about to tell him.

"Mushi, they—they took Li."


	27. Choosing Sides, Part 1

At last, the end is here! \o/ Thank you again to everybody who's faved and followed (and of course to gaara for so faithfully reviewing!), and to everybody who's seen this and gone back to look at Book One; I hope you've enjoyed this book, and I hope you'll also enjoy the next one. :D (I've got basic outlines down for the first six chapters—I'm hoping to get the whole thing outlined to a moderate level of detail, because I didn't do that for this book and ended up regretting it. :P)

There's a LOT of stuff going on in this last chapter and a lot of different POVs involved. I've done my best to not make it confusing, but of course it's hard for me to tell, because _I_ know exactly what's happening! So feedback of all kinds is very much welcome. Thank you so much to everybody who reads this at all, whether you review or not! It's a delight to think I've managed to entertain you for a little while. :) See you at the next book, I hope!

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14: Choosing Sides<strong>

* * *

><p>.*.<p>

* * *

><p>"Are we almost there?"<p>

"Pretty close," Toph told Katara, leaving her hand pressed against the roof of the tunnel for an extra moment. They were definitely underneath the Lower Ring, now, and a safe distance from the Middle Ring wall. The shape of the street wasn't quite right, they weren't there yet, but they _were_ pretty close: Toph remembered passing the shop with the crooked door, the way it had banged against the threshold, and it was overhead and across the street from them now.

But there was something else, something underneath all the noise of the street and the echoing beats of a thousand footsteps. Toph flattened her fingers against the stone and concentrated.

"Well, does the tunnel go the right way," Katara was saying, "or do we have to—"

"Get out of here," Toph said, sharp.

"What?"

That was Suki. "Get out of here," Toph repeated, "we have to get out of here _right now_—"

"Wait—hey—"

Toph let the words slide by and listened to the stone instead—she'd pulled up a chunk of the tunnel floor underneath her so she could get a hand on the tunnel roof, and now she braced her feet against it and shoved her fist upward.

The tunnel cracked open over her; there was maybe an armslength of stone between Toph and the surface of the street, not much trouble at all. Whatever was coming at them was getting louder, now, loud enough that the rest of them could hear it, too—loud enough for Toph to feel it even better.

She still couldn't tell what it was, but it felt almost like a train, like the one they'd ridden into the city from the outer wall—that big, that fast, except it wasn't made of stone. And that was beyond weird: plenty of people in Ba Sing Se could've gotten something to move like that as long as it _was_ stone, but if it wasn't, how was anybody getting it to go so quick? Nothing moved like that, nothing except Earth trains or—

Or Fire Nation machines.

"What _is_ that?" said the king.

"Doesn't much matter, if it kills us," Toph said blandly, raising her voice over the rumble of it.

Katara was right next to her, raising another pillar out of the tunnel floor, and then she grabbed the king's arm and helped him up onto it. He wavered dangerously until Toph managed to grab his wrist, and from there he was tall enough to climb up onto the street himself, even in all his clumsy kingly robes.

Li Chen was next, and then Suki, who was so quick and strong she didn't need a hand at all—and now whatever it was had gotten loud enough to drown in, rolling closer like thunder, so that Toph could barely tell when Suki was out. Everything was trembling with the sound; Toph reached out without thinking, unsteady, and Katara caught her hand.

"Come on!" Katara shouted, and even with the noise Toph could feel the stone beneath them shudder as Katara yanked it up.

They came up just about level with the street, Suki giving them each a hand to help them scramble up. Not a moment too soon, either, because whatever it was slammed straight into the stone column they'd been standing on—and smashed right through it, rock crumbling out from under Toph's toes a moment before Suki pulled her up the rest of the way.

For an instant, Toph could feel it through the stone of the street: huge, heavy, screaming with power. And then it rumbled away beneath them and was gone.

"I guess now we've got some idea what that tunnel was for," Toph said.

"Yeah," Suki said, dry. "Nothing good."

Katara set a hand on Toph's shoulder. "You said we were close, right?"

"Yeah," Toph said, "it's just down the street."

People were gathered around, a circle cleared around them—staring at them, Toph thought, because probably nobody busted up out of a hole in the ground very often, especially not sounding like they'd been dragging a train behind them. Toph felt their murmurs, their startled heartbeats, trembling along the lines of the street: back that way was the market, that was right, which meant they had to go around the corner by the place with the crooked door, and then it was just a couple doors down.

"Come on," Toph said, and started walking.

.*.*.*.

"Extraordinary! Really incredible! Oh—what's _that_?"

"Boy," Aang said, "he really hasn't been anywhere outside that palace, has he?"

He was floating along beside Katara, drifting backwards so he could look skeptically past her at the king—who was clutching his spectacles and gazing around interestedly at the Lower Ring. Li Chen had made the king leave his hat behind back under the Upper Ring somewhere, but he was still kind of a noticeable guy.

It should have been annoying, but it was actually sort of nice having the king there, staring around like a kid, treating the whole thing like an adventure. It made it easier for Katara to pretend she wasn't scared half out of her mind.

"Hey," Aang said, gentle, and Katara blinked and looked up to find that he was looking at her now instead of the king. "It's going to be okay."

Katara would have started laughing, or maybe crying, except there were crowds and crowds of people in the street and she didn't need them staring any more than they already were. "How can you say that?" she hissed instead, trying her best to look like she was talking to herself and not to a ghost. "How can you possibly—we don't even know what's happening, we don't even know _why_. Sokka and Yue are _gone_, the Council is gone; the king was supposed to save _us_, we were supposed to—to have a plan, to have _armies_—"

"Katara—"

"Here we are," Toph said, voice raised over the noise of the street.

Katara pressed the backs of her hands against her face and closed her eyes; she felt hot and unsteady, panicky, vaguely sick. She took one deep breath and then another, and then opened her eyes again to watch Toph knock on the closed door of Pao Family Tea House.

"Many apologies!" a man's voice called out from inside the building. "We are temporarily closed."

Toph flattened her hand against the door and tilted her head. "Is that you, tea guy?"

There was a pause. "I had hoped to serve you tea again someday," said whoever it was inside, "but now is—not a good time, my friend—"

"You're telling me," Toph said. "Look, I—I really need some help."

She said it sharply, a little defensively; but she _said_ it, and for an instant Katara almost wanted to smile.

"Please," Toph said, more quietly. "Just let us in. We won't be here long, I promise."

There was another moment's pause, and then the door swung open and Katara looked into the tired, concerned face of—

of—

General Iroh of the Fire Nation.

"You," she said, blank.

It was too much, too ridiculous; she couldn't muster any kind of reasonable reaction, anger or fear or even proper surprise. As if one more thing had really needed to go exactly the wrong way today—they hadn't seen Prince Zuko in ages, not since they'd come down from the north, and now Toph had led them right back into his path—

Except Prince Zuko didn't seem to be there. There was only General Iroh. And he didn't lunge for Katara, didn't grab her or attack her. He stepped back, holding the door open, looking right at Katara the whole time; and then he bowed, inclining his head, and motioned them inside.

"Come on, move it," Toph said, and she grabbed Katara by the elbow and propelled her over the threshold.

.*.*.*.

The Avatar went where she was pushed, one unsteady step at a time, and did not take her eyes off Iroh.

"You," she said again.

The Kyoshi Warrior followed them in—she was not looking at Iroh, but out at the street behind them, and she ushered a man and a woman in beside her, remaining by the door and watching carefully until they were both inside.

Iroh bowed again, and said, "Avatar."

When the knock had come at the door, he had told Qingying and the children to hide behind the tea counter, expecting more Dai Li or even city soldiers—the girl who'd tasted his tea for him had not been among his guesses, and that she should have the Avatar in tow was so extraordinary as to be almost beyond belief.

It was one of the great beauties of existence, Iroh thought, that you could never live so long or see so much that life could not still surprise you.

"You guys know each other?" said the girl who'd tasted Iroh's tea. "How is that even possible?"

The Avatar ignored her. "Where is he?" she said to Iroh. "Did you follow us here? Have you been following us this whole time?"

"Whoa, hey," said the girl who'd tasted Iroh's tea. "What are you talking about, Katara?"

Iroh kept his gaze on the Avatar. "No," he said to her, though of course it would be very fair of her to choose not to believe him. "We came here to find safety, Avatar—and we seem to have failed. My nephew poses no danger to you."

"What? Did something happen to him?" said the girl who'd tasted Iroh's tea, concerned.

"Toph!" the Avatar said, sharp, and she was about to say something else when she was interrupted.

"They _took_ him!"

Iroh turned: it was Jin, of course it was, darting around the end of the counter and then promptly stumbling, ignoring Qingying's scolding cry. Iroh ducked down and caught the boy before he could fall, and there was a flurry of motion behind him—the Avatar, Iroh realized as he turned back around, rushing forward as though to snatch Jin away from him, except the only thing that meant was that she came close enough for Jin to catch a handful of her hair in his flailing fingers.

"They _took_ him," Jin repeated, round-eyed, clutching the Avatar's hair. "Aren't you going to save him?"

"Jin," Iroh said soothingly, shifting his grip until he could free one of his hands to catch Jin's wrist. "Jin, let go—"

"The Avatar _saves_ people," Jin said to him firmly, kicking out with both feet as though for emphasis. "She'll help you get Li back—won't she?"

The Avatar looked as though she had fifteen things to say but was thoroughly aware that she only had one mouth to say them with. "_Li_—" she began.

"How many kids do you have hiding behind that counter, anyway?" said the girl who'd tasted Iroh's tea, hands on her hips.

"I do not understand what is happening," said the man behind her, decisively. He had remained standing by the door, clutching his spectacles to his nose and watching Iroh and the Avatar, eyebrows steadily climbing toward his hairline.

There was a moment's silence, during which Iroh managed to coax Jin with a gentle hand into letting go of the Avatar's hair; and then the woman stepped forward and bowed to Iroh, low. "Perhaps," she said, "if we might all agree to sit down for a moment and talk?"

.*.*.*.

Qingying had ducked halfway around the edge of the tea-counter to reach for Jin—that was why the woman saw her. "All of us," the woman amended, the words polite and deferent and kind but still somehow pointed all the same; and she inclined her head to Qingying, who was still half-crouched by the corner of a tea-counter, as gravely and carefully as she had bowed to Mushi.

Pao's didn't have any tables large enough to seat them all, but Qingying herded Zhiyang and Lan toward one, and Yanhong ran off to sit on Mushi's knee, and the Avatar—the _Avatar_—sank down warily across from them, leaving the sides of their table empty. Somehow it all worked out, everyone seated across three different tables, no one's back to anyone else, and a clear space in the middle.

"Perhaps we should begin by explaining why we have come," the woman said, looking attentively toward the girl Mushi had opened the doors for—not quite asking her, Qingying thought, but nevertheless it was an obvious prompt, for all the neutrality of that thoughtful _perhaps_.

"Sure, yeah," the girl said, and turned toward Mushi. "I never introduced myself last time—sorry about that. I'm Toph—Toph Bei Fong. I guess you already know Katara somehow, and maybe Suki; and that's Li Chen, and that's—um, just call him Hu. We needed a place to go, and—" She shrugged. "I thought of this. I thought it would be safe enough for a little while, and maybe you'd help me again."

"_Again_?" the Avatar said. "Toph—"

"I didn't realize," Toph said, more loudly, "that _Her Highness_ over here was going to freak out—"

"The Avatar is not wrong to ask the questions she asks." That was Mushi, quiet, and sounding far more dignified than anybody ought to be able to sound when they had Jin on one knee and Yanhong on the other. "And the matter before you—somewhat more urgent than a philosophical problem, this time?"

"A little," Toph agreed. "The Dai Li are up to something. We don't know what it is, but they've got Sok—uh, the Avatar's brother, and—and a friend of ours, and they tried to grab me and Katara—and how'd you know Katara's the Avatar, anyway? Who are you?"

It was honest curiosity, as far as Qingying could tell—nothing that should put an expression like that on Mushi's face, tired and unhappy, a brief sudden darkness like a cloud passing over.

He opened his mouth, but Yanhong beat him to it. "Our uncle Mushi!" she said, clutching one of his fingers where his hand was wrapped around her side. "He's our uncle Mushi, he came with us on the ferry. The green people took Li, and they tried to take Mushi, too, but Qingying hit them with a teapot!"

The Avatar stared at Yanhong, blinking, and then up at Mushi; and her eyes went narrow, but she looked somehow less angry than she had a moment before. "The Dai Li took," she said, and then paused, swallowing, and darted an uncomfortable glance at Yanhong, at Jin, and over at Qingying. "Um, Li?"

"I was not there," Mushi said. "The children were with him when it happened, and came to tell me. The Dai Li were already here for me, by then."

"They're _here_?" the Avatar said, rising half out of her chair.

"They're all asleep. We tied them up and shoved them in the back!" That was Jin, breathless with remembered excitement, and he pointed enthusiastically toward the counter.

"The Dai Li make many arrests," the woman—Li Chen—said slowly.

"They didn't say it was an arrest," Qingying said.

She didn't entirely mean to say it, and didn't quite realize she had until everyone was suddenly looking at her. But it was true; and if they had to hear it before they would agree to help Li, then she would say it until she was hoarse.

"They didn't say it was an arrest," she repeated. "I told them he hadn't done anything, and they didn't care. The man who was in charge, he said—he said he'd been ordered to. They didn't tell us any more than that, they just took him away. We'd only—we'd just been eating lunch, we spent a little while by the fountain and then we were coming here so Li would be on time for his shift—"

She was talking too quickly, she knew she was, and somewhere in the middle of it her eyes had started to sting; she'd been upset when they'd taken Li, a little worried and a little angry, but then they'd come to Pao's and found Mushi on the floor, city officials unconscious or else groaning on the ground around him, and suddenly it had been _dangerous_. Like it wasn't a mistake, wasn't something Mushi was going to be able to fix just by telling them who he really was, and that meant it was serious—Qingying had picked up that teapot with her heart in her throat and her stomach in her shoes. She couldn't see the shape of this as easily as soldiers, as easily as fire, but that didn't mean it wasn't just as capable of taking her family away—it already had, hadn't it? After what she'd said to Li this afternoon about sisters—

Someone touched her elbow, her hand—Zhiyang, she thought, and then on her other side, Lan leaned in close and put one narrow arm around Qingying's shoulders.

Qingying sucked in a shaky breath. She'd looked down at some point, she couldn't remember when, but she looked up again to find that the Avatar was staring at her.

The Avatar's brother had been taken, too; that was what Toph had said.

"But why?" Li Chen was saying, at the other end of their group of tables. "If it is indeed deliberate, if they took this boy today for a reason—I do not understand it."

After a moment's silence, Mushi leaned forward, steadying Yanhong and Jin against his chest. "We have been known by other names in this city, my nephew and I," he said. And then he looked at Li Chen, opened his mouth, and breathed out.

It was not so very much, not so very bright, but there was no mistaking it: the breath Mushi let out was made of fire. Qingying had never seen him bend before and had gotten used to the idea that he couldn't—there was a line in her head somewhere, and yellow eyes were one thing but Firebending felt like something else, like it belonged to soldiers or raiders; like it meant you were _really_ Fire Nation, really the Fire Lord's, all the way through. Except there had been flames earlier, before Qingying had hit that last woman with the teapot—at the time, Qingying hadn't thought to wonder where they'd come from, but now she had a guess. So it wasn't that he couldn't bend, then, just that he hadn't. It had to be safer that way, in an Earth city; and maybe Mushi felt kind of like Firebending belonged to soldiers, too.

Li Chen was blocked from Qingying's view for a moment by the little cloud of fire, but when it was gone, she was staring at Mushi, and her hands were pressed very flat against the table, as though she wanted to shove herself up out of her chair but hadn't quite done it yet.

"Oh!" said Hu, who was sitting next to her. "Goodness. I wasn't expecting that."

Mushi didn't smile at the man or answer him, didn't even look at him; he kept his gaze on Li Chen, who swallowed twice and then said slowly, "And how long have you been living here?"

"Since before Spring Festival," Mushi said, calm.

Li Chen's gaze flicked to Yanhong, and then back to Mushi. "Since you—came on the ferry."

"Yes," Mushi said.

"Living in the Lower Ring," Li Chen said, half to herself. "Working in a tea shop. With—your nephew."

"Just so," Mushi said; and then, more quietly: "This city has been kinder to me than I could ever deserve."

Li Chen stared at him a moment longer; and then, slowly, her hands relaxed against the tabletop. She must have heard of him, Qingying thought—she must have known somehow that there was a Firebender who could bend his own breath working for the queen of Lannang. "Well," she said. "I would not be surprised if the Dai Li are keeping the—that is, your nephew—in the same place they are keeping the Avatar's companions. And that place is most probably the crystal catacombs of the Upper Ring."

.*.*.*.

"The where?" Toph said.

There was obviously a lot of stuff flying around in this conversation that she was missing, and she was going to have to ask a lot of people a lot of questions; but even she could tell that _crystal catacombs_ was probably not good news.

"A network of tunnels," Li Chen said, "more crystal than stone. They are quite vast—only a very small portion of their full area is currently occupied by the tombs of the ancient kings of Ba Sing Se, for all that such tombs are many in number. Most of the catacombs are now used by the Dai Li for various purposes, including prisoner detention. They are quite labyrinthine, and there are only a few entrances and exits—the catacombs as a whole are relatively easy to secure, which is why the Dai Li favor them."

"The royal dead guys probably don't hurt," Toph murmured. That seemed like the kind of thing Long Feng would really like—all those kings of the past, that long, long line of _cultural authority_, lying there watching him plot and scheme and ruin people's lives in the name of the city.

"But you know where it is, right?" Katara said to Li Chen.

"I can tell you how to get there," Li Chen said, "and I have no doubt that Toph will be able to tell when you are close. I—think it would be best if I did not leave my brother."

Toph grimaced, and Katara and Suki both shifted their weight next to her like maybe they had, too. Li Chen made a good point: leaving the king in the Lower Ring by himself was a hand-calligraphed invitation to total disaster. "Yeah, okay," Toph said. "You coming, tea guy?"

The tea guy—Mushi, that was what the kids kept calling him, except even he seemed to admit that wasn't actually his name—inclined his head, and he was totally about to say something except he didn't get the chance.

"Are you _kidding_?" Katara said loudly. "Why would you ever—"

"He gave me tea!" Toph said, exasperated. "He gave me tea and good advice and let me talk to him for half the afternoon, and now his nephew's missing. So he's a Firebender, okay—"

"He's not just a Firebender," Katara said, "he's—" and then she caught herself and swallowed whatever she'd been about to say—she was angry and she didn't like the guy, but she still didn't want to spill whatever it was in front of the rest of his nieces and nephews.

"I intend you no harm," said the tea guy, very gently. "I know you have no reason to believe it, but I swear to you that it is true."

Toph pressed a foot to the floor: his heartbeat was even, steady, and maybe he was just a really good liar, but Toph didn't think so. "He's telling the truth," she told Katara.

Katara didn't say anything.

"I owe more apologies than I can give," the tea guy added, "to you and to your companion," and he inclined his head toward Suki. "I do not ask forgiveness, Avatar, only that you consider: my nephew and your friends are most likely imprisoned in the same place. You intend to go there, and I intend to go there. What purpose is served by doing so separately, at odds with the Dai Li and with each other? I think you already have too many enemies today; and I do not wish to be considered one of them."

"Also the truth," Toph muttered, in case Katara was having trouble noticing.

Katara didn't elbow her for it; she just took a deep breath and let it out slow, and still didn't say a word.

"Please," said the girl at the end—the oldest of the kids, or at least the tallest.

Katara turned to look at her for a long moment, and then turned back to the tea guy and leaned in across the table. "And you—you won't get in our way, you won't try to slow us down—"

"If something should prevent you from succeeding in your efforts," the tea guy said, "I will do whatever I can to ensure that your friends go free."

"But?" Katara said, wary.

The tea guy hesitated for a moment—he didn't want to say whatever he was going to say, Toph thought, but he was going to say it anyway. "But I must—I must ask you to promise me the same. I would not make demands of you for my own sake, Avatar; but they took my nephew for a reason, I am certain of it. Whatever is intended to happen to him because of it must not happen."

"Your _nephew_—"

"Okay," Suki said.

"Suki!"

"Katara," Suki replied, very even. "Everything he's saying makes sense—you know it does. I recognize him, too; I remember what they were going to do to my village, I remember how hard they made things for us, and I know what he's done. But this is our best chance to get Sokka and Yue away from the Dai Li. You'd hate yourself later if you wasted it just because you were angry, and I'm not going to let you."

Katara was still for a long moment—looking at Suki, Toph thought, or at least she was facing the right direction to. And then she said, "All right."

"Thank you," the tea guy said, grave, and then he turned to Li Chen and the king and inclined his head. "And if I might suggest that you accompany Qingying and the children home," he added, blithe, "they will vouch for you. I am certain their aunt can provide you with clothes that will make you look a little less like members of the royal household."

Toph grinned. Nobody had said a word about it, and she'd remembered at the last second to introduce the king as Hu, but whoever or whatever else he was, the tea guy wasn't stupid. They were still going up against a whole lot of Dai Li, never mind whatever that thing had been in the tunnel; but she couldn't help feeling like the odds they'd actually make it out of today alive had just improved.

* * *

><p>Qiang Luo didn't see the precise moment it happened; there was something in his boot, a pebble or a rough edge, and so he was staring down at his foot and trying to decide whether it was worth taking the boot off in public, while he was still on duty. On the one hand: he didn't think guards at posts like his were supposed to be seen lurching around with one boot off. On the other hand: he was on duty for the rest of the day, and that was a long time to stand in one spot even when you <em>didn't<em> have a pebble prodding the ball of your foot.

So he didn't see it—but he heard it. The rumbling just sounded like a train, but then there was a crunch, a grinding of stone, and Qiang Luo jerked his head up to find the street cracked open in front of him, the gleaming nose of some kind of machine rising out. It was like a dream, it made no sense, and he felt frozen solid, like he couldn't do anything but blink—

Gleaming, gleaming and metal, that was what was important: the Fire Nation built with metal. Qiang Luo found himself shouting, as though Hei Huang could possibly need a warning when the thing was so _noisy_; he reached without thinking to draw his sword, even though it probably wouldn't so much as scratch whatever it was.

He thought at first it was a hand that had gripped his wrist, except it was too smooth, too cool, too hard—a stone glove, he saw when he looked down, and the Dai Li agent who had bent it was barely an armslength away. "This is none of your concern, guardsman," he said to Qiang Luo, lifting his chin. "Do not interfere."

Qiang Luo gaped at him. The thing had made it all the way up and out from under the street, by now, and it was massive, some kind of _tank_—metal, all right, slatted together in huge shining scales like the back of a scorpion snake, and there was no mistaking the black flame curling across the near side. If he wasn't here to keep the Fire Nation out of the Upper Ring, then what had he ever been here for?

The Dai Li agent looked at Qiang Luo with a steady even gaze, unwavering; and Qiang Luo felt a sudden welling-up of doubt. He'd sworn to give his life for the city, he had—maybe he hadn't ever thought the city would call in that promise, but he knew that wasn't supposed to matter.

Except the Dai Li _were_ the city, wasn't that what everybody always said? The Dai Li were the city, and Qiang Luo was only a gate guard—the Dai Li were righteous, venerated, the king's own right hand. Who was Qiang Luo to refuse them? Surely, surely, they knew more than he did about whatever was happening, about this war machine that had appeared out of the ground. Surely they knew what to do about it. Perhaps it had even been captured by them—how could Qiang Luo presume to know better?

"But," he tried, swallowing, and then ran out of words. What words were there? The Dai Li agent could see as well as Qiang Luo could that there was a giant Fire Nation tank in the middle of the street, but he didn't seem upset by it—he didn't even seem especially surprised. He must know something Qiang Luo didn't, he _must_. How else could he possibly stand there and let this happen?

"Let go of your sword and stand aside," the Dai Li agent said, stern and commanding and utterly certain; and Qiang Luo looked at him helplessly and then away, and did as he was told.

.*.*.*.

They agreed to General Iroh's plan because—well, because it was good, or at least better than anything they'd had up until then. Katara supposed it made sense, in a horrible kind of way: General Iroh was famous for his tactics, after all. And apparently they were ignoring the part where he'd last used that skill to just about destroy Ba Sing Se.

What Suki had said was true—he probably was their best chance to get Sokka and Yue back, and it would have been stupid and short-sighted to throw that chance away just because he'd deliberately starved thousands of people to death. Katara hadn't forgotten the things Princess Azula had said about him: that he'd been a father, a husband; that he'd lost the siege in the end because of his grief. That he was here at all said something—he'd left a country he could have ruled to follow Prince Zuko around in exile.

But he'd also stood at the head of Azulon's armies and decided how best to grind people beneath the Fire Nation's heel, and then he'd spent years doing it; and Katara couldn't figure out how she was supposed to bring herself to pretend otherwise.

General Iroh had pointed out that it was very unlikely that they would be able to return to the tea shop safely if they left their packs there—especially if the Dai Li decided to come looking for the six agents who were currently tied up behind the counter. Better to take the packs along and leave them near the catacombs, where they could more easily be retrieved.

Toph had agreed, cheerily; and Katara had stared at him without speaking and then given him two packs to carry. He had taken them and bowed his head, which was sort of worse than if he'd been offended or refused—at least that way Katara could have yelled at him instead of having to leave her anger where it was, simmering away in her chest.

Li Chen and the king were going to stay with the children, at least long enough for any curious eyes in the street to be occupied following Katara. "I hope this will not be the last time I see you," Li Chen said, "but if it is, then I wish for you to know: whatever comes of the things you have done here, I am glad that you did them."

Katara shook her head, wordless. The Dai Li had taken the palace and maybe even the city, and Katara couldn't even begin to think about stopping them until Sokka and Yue were free; Li Chen had been the university president, and now she was running for her life, trying to keep the king safe, and the only reason either one of them was in danger at all was because they'd listened to Katara—

Li Chen's hands came down gently on Katara's shoulders. "The things that were truly wrong with this city were wrong before you came here," she said. "Perhaps you have pulled aside the curtain, perhaps you have pointed a light so it shines on these wrongs—that does not make them your doing. What we had before you came was orderly, but that does not mean it was balance. You have only tried to do what was right; and I am grateful. I said once that helping you felt dangerous, and it was—because everything important is dangerous, everything meaningful is dangerous. What would you have me do, Avatar? Lead an unimportant life?" She smiled and then shrugged a shoulder, artful. "There is no such thing."

"But what will you do?" Katara said helplessly. "The university—"

"I did not run the university alone," Li Chen said. "If worst comes to worst and we must flee the city, there will still be Wu Shou and Yeung Jei-yin, there will still be the university committee. Perhaps it would even be for the best. There is a great deal of his kingdom that my brother has never seen."

"You mean—outside?" the king said, blinking. "To the Yellow Seas, or—or north, to the mountains?"

"We will have to make our way safely through the city first," Li Chen said, dry, but the king didn't seem to be listening.

"I've never been to the mountains, you know." The king adjusted his spectacles, eyes narrowed. "Really truly outside," he repeated, thoughtful. "What an interesting idea."

.*.

The hole they'd left in the street was still there, and the tunnel beneath. By Li Chen's best estimate, there had been a point in the Upper Ring where their tunnel had come pretty close to the crystal catacombs, so it was as good a route as any. If the Dai Li really wanted to find them, being up on the street wouldn't be any better or worse than being in a tunnel, in the end.

Toph was the first one down, and she raised a column of stone back up for General Iroh and lowered him in next.

"I did not know you were as skilled with bending stone as you are with tasting tea, my friend," he said, hefting one of the packs he was carrying higher on his shoulder, and Katara glanced sideways in time to see Toph smile. It made Katara want to—to spit on him, to _scream_ at him, so he'd know she hadn't forgotten, wasn't fooled; she met Aang's gaze over General Iroh's head and then closed her eyes, and concentrated on the stone at her feet. She was supposed to be mastering neutral jing: this wasn't the right moment.

Katara stepped sideways onto the floor of the tunnel and then let go of the rock she'd been standing on—she would have raised it back up, but Suki had already lowered herself down to hang from the lip of the hole in the street. Two swings of her feet, and then Suki let go with a leisurely flip, and landed neatly on the tunnel floor. "What is it?" she said, straightening up—she was looking at Toph, who had a hand flat against the tunnel wall and both eyebrows raised.

"We are definitely not the only ones down here," Toph said, and reached out toward Katara with her free hand, gesturing impatiently. The moment Katara was near enough, she grabbed Katara's wrist, and then she tugged until she could lay Katara's palm against the rock. "Feel?"

Katara rolled her eyes, and was about to say sharply that she couldn't—and then she paused and pressed her hand flatter, Toph's fingers still wrapped warmly around her wrist. Neutral jing, energy in stillness; and if there was energy in Katara when she was holding still, then there was energy in earth when it was still, too—

For an instant, it worked: Katara reached out into the stone without moving, bent without bending, and she could feel how the energy lay waiting in the rock, a breath held. She could feel where it was, and she could feel where it _wasn't_, the long empty curves of—a dozen tunnels? Twenty? Fifty? Katara couldn't quite tell how many there were, she couldn't follow the energy out far enough to be sure; but they were there, and the two nearest tunnels on either side were rumbling with machinery—and there was a third machine, beyond them and further away but coming closer now, a fourth somewhere ahead nearer the Middle Ring, a fifth—

She lifted her hand away from the wall, blinking. "The Dai Li, they're—what are they _doing_?"

"I don't know," Toph said, "but I think we're in bigger trouble than we thought we were."

Katara swallowed, and then stepped away from the tunnel wall and shook her head. "We just have to get to Sokka and Yue," she said, "and then we can figure it out, whatever it is."

"Can we?" Suki said.

She was standing in the middle of the tunnel, arms crossed; the hole they'd left in the street was behind her and off to one side, her face was half shadow, and her tone was grim.

"These tunnels are—someone _built_ these, Katara, built them to fit that thing that almost ran us over. If you can tell from here that there's more than one tunnel—this city is enormous, there could be hundreds of them. Somebody planned this, somebody _prepared this."_

"Your friend is right," General Iroh said, gentle and certain at once. "This is the work of days, even months."

Katara looked away from him, biting down on the words piling up on her tongue, and met Aang's gaze instead.

"Long Feng would've known you'd try to stop him," he said, eyes wide and grave in his round blue face. "There must be a reason he's doing all of this now, and it must be a really good one. He wouldn't risk everything he's worked for on anything less."

"We're not going anywhere without Sokka and Yue," Katara said. "Or—or Zuko," because she'd promised, she had, even if she hadn't wanted to.

General Iroh bowed his head, acknowledging. "Indeed," he said. "But what takes many days' work to do will surely take many days' work to undo, Avatar, and the forces aligned against you at this time and in this place are vast. If it should come down to it, I urge you to consider: perhaps the best thing you can do today is make sure you are able to leave this city alive."

* * *

><p>It was kind of nice to think that Suki had actually maybe made it—had gotten all the way to Katara and told her what was going on. The hole the Dai Li had chucked Sokka and Yue into wasn't <em>comfy<em>, exactly; but it wasn't that bad. It was big, roomy, and it definitely beat being chained to a post in Fort Pohuai. Plus, the longer they sat in there without anybody else getting chucked in after them, the easier it was to believe that Suki really was about to save them any moment, which was part of the reason the sound of a bunch of feet tromping around above them made Sokka's heart leap right up into his throat.

He looked at Yue and found her looking back—they both scrambled up and moved to get out of the way. Not a whole lot of noise was making it down, but it sounded kind of like there was a struggle going on up there, and Sokka didn't really want to add "a foot to the face" to the list of things that was wrong with today.

The Dai Li liked to throw people into pits, and their chosen method for getting you there turned out to be a downward-slanted tunnel—they just dropped you in and waited until they heard you land, and whether it was on your feet or your face didn't seem to matter much. Sokka had started tumbling over himself about halfway down, during his turn, and his shoulder was still aching where he'd landed on it; Yue had scraped up the heels of her hands and half of her forearms, but had managed to keep from hitting her head.

There was a shout somewhere overhead that got louder really fast—yep, Sokka thought, somebody was definitely on the way down. One muffled grunt, another, and then whoever it was flew out of the end of the tunnel in a flurry of green clothes and landed hard.

Green—not Katara, then. The clothes didn't look like Suki's; and whoever it was, they were taller than Toph. Maybe Katara wasn't the only one in trouble with the Dai Li today.

"Ouch," Sokka offered, sympathetic, and reached down to grab the—guy? Short hair, anyway—by the elbow. "You okay?" The maybe-a-guy stumbled upright and turned around, and— "You have got to be kidding me! _You_?"

Prince Zuko—_Prince Zuko_—stared at him, wide-eyed, like Sokka was the one who wasn't supposed to be there. It was pretty weird seeing the guy dressed in Earth Kingdom clothes, but it was definitely him: that nasty scar was still splashed across his face, plain as day.

"Have you been following us this whole time?" Sokka demanded.

"No—no, I," Prince Zuko said, and then abruptly shut his mouth, looking away.

"Oh, really," Sokka said, filling the words with all the dubiousness they deserved.

"I didn't know you were here," Price Zuko said, slow, biting off each word like it hurt to say.

"Right, sure," Sokka said, "you just followed us halfway around the world and halfway back, and now you're in the same place as us _again_, but that's totally a coincidence—"

"If you are not looking for Katara," Yue interrupted, "then why are you here?"

Prince Zuko looked at her for the first time since Sokka had helped him up, and he stared at her all strangely and then over at the tunnel, and didn't say anything. He was such a weirdo.

"In case you weren't sure," Sokka said, "not being able to answer that question doesn't make you more believable. Sort of the opposite."

"I was running," Prince Zuko said at last, reluctant. "There is—someone is chasing me."

"You mean there's somebody out there who doesn't like you?" Sokka said, throwing up his hands. "I don't believe it!"

There was the glare, at last.

"So you ran—here?" Yue said.

She sounded calm and curious, and she was looking at the prince steadily, gaze intent but not unkind—like she'd forgotten that the last time they'd seen him, she'd had to freeze him to the wall to keep him from kidnapping Katara. She was kind of a weirdo, too, Sokka thought.

Prince Zuko glanced at her and then away again. "It was the safest option," he said stiffly.

"How long have you been here?" Yue said.

Prince Zuko didn't answer. And, all right, that was kind of interesting. Sokka wouldn't have bet _air_ on Prince Zuko spending any length of time at all in an Earth Kingdom city without, you know, slaughtering people to take their heads back to his father or something—but here he was anyway, and he'd been in Ba Sing Se long enough to get green clothes, at least. It didn't suddenly make him a nice guy or anything; but it was interesting.

"I guess the Dai Li aren't too happy with you, either, huh?" Sokka said. For almost the same reason, maybe: Prince Zuko had to represent the possibility of war to them at least as much as Katara did.

"The Dai Li," Prince Zuko repeated. "Is that who they were?"

"What, you don't even know? Man," Sokka said, marveling, "you really have been keeping your head down."

"Not far enough," Prince Zuko said, sharp.

"Well, to be fair, it's kind of hard to hide that thing," Sokka said, waving a hand at the scar. "I wouldn't feel too bad about it."

Prince Zuko gave him a flat look—totally unwarranted, considering how gracious Sokka was being and all. "Mm," Prince Zuko said.

"Anyway," Sokka said, "if you didn't come here because of Katara, are you still trying to grab her? Because I could save myself some trouble later and just punch you in the face right now."

Hilariously, Prince Zuko darted a glance down at Sokka's hands, like he thought maybe Sokka wasn't planning to wait for him to answer. "Capturing the Avatar and taking her to my father is the only way he will forgive me," he said—but slowly, not half as firmly as Sokka might have expected.

"That is not a yes," Yue observed, gentle.

Prince Zuko looked at her and then at Sokka, and he was just about to say something else when there was a rumble above them. The tunnel—but it wasn't somebody else getting chucked down to join them. Either a train was passing over them somewhere, or somebody was Earthbending—

Two Dai Li agents came skidding down the sides of the tunnel, feet plowing furrows in the rock, as calmly as though they were walking down a staircase; and between them—bent along with them, Sokka thought, being carried down on a slice of stone—was Princess Azula.

Sokka got a feeling like there was a rock in his gut. They'd _captured_ her, they'd given her to the city guard—except the Dai Li had to have higher authority than the city guard, didn't they? It was nuts, totally nuts, she was such a creep—but making a deal with her was completely the kind of thing Long Feng would do, and the moment Sokka thought it, he knew that was exactly what had happened. What had they agreed to do? Give her Katara if she left Ba Sing Se alone?

Prince Zuko had to be loving this, Sokka couldn't help thinking—except no, maybe not, because if his sister got Katara instead of him, that didn't do him any good, did it? Had he realized that?

Sokka glanced at him to see, because maybe if he had realized it, they could somehow get him to help them—ugh, Sokka had to be desperate to even be thinking it. But Prince Zuko didn't look happy _or_ angry; he looked totally surprised, and maybe even kind of horrified.

"Hello, Zuzu," Princess Azula said—warmly, almost kindly. It sort of made Sokka want to shudder.

"It was you," Prince Zuko said, flat, half to himself. "You had them arrest me."

_Someone is chasing me_, he'd said—had he seriously meant his _sister_? Man, the Fire Nation was so messed up.

"I know what you're thinking," Azula said, moving closer. "I know what you think I'm here for. But it doesn't have to be that way, Zuko. With the Dai Li at my command, I can capture the Avatar—I can give her to you. Father will change his mind if you come back with her in glory, I know he will. Everything can go back to the way it was."

"Oh, totally," Sokka said. "Just as soon as you've set this city on fire and danced on its bones. Awesome."

.*.*.*.

Azula turned away to look at the Avatar's brother, and Zuko took the opportunity to close his eyes. Everything she said was everything he wanted; he hadn't felt steady on his feet since he'd gotten to this city, and he needed the old certainty back so badly he could taste it, bitter childish yearning crawling up the back of his throat. But she _knew_ that, she had to—that was why she was saying it. And if he could have traded belief for the memory of Port Tsao, he would have done it in an instant; but he couldn't. He couldn't forget the look that had been on her face, the lightning she'd bent at him—she'd said things he'd wanted to hear then, too, but his wanting hadn't made them true. She hadn't been looking for him so she could take him home to Father and restore him to his place.

Maybe—_maybe_—she was telling him the truth today. But how could he ever be sure? It seemed so much like something she'd do: admit to lying to him before, or as good as, to show him a moment's sincerity before lying to him again—

"Nonsense," Azula was saying to the Avatar's brother. "A city of ashes isn't much use to anyone. I have much more interesting plans for this place."

"Oh, yay, I can't wait," the Avatar's brother said, wiggling his fingers in a parody of excitement before he let his hands drop again. "I can't help noticing that you said you _could_ capture Katara, as in you haven't done it yet—but we've been in here for a while now. You must've tried, right? Didn't work out too well, is that it?"

Zuko blinked. Azula never failed at anything—but the Avatar's brother was right. _I can capture the Avatar_, she'd said, not _I have_.

Azula shrugged, easy—but didn't tell him he was wrong. "This city will be ours within the day," she said, "and then there will be no escape—for the Avatar or for you." She turned back to Zuko, calm and confident and smiling. "You were stupid, Zuko, and you were exiled for it—but you aren't a traitor. Even Father knows that. Foolishness isn't so grave a crime that Father can't forgive it." She took a step closer, watching Zuko with thoughtful eyes. She didn't always look cruel, that was the trouble. If she had, it would have been easier. "I know how much you still love him, I know how much you want him to trust you—and the only thing you need to make it happen is that girl. You _know_ that. We can find her together, we can find her and then you can come home—"

"Oh, come on!" the Avatar's brother cried. "That's got to be the creepiest thing I've ever heard in my _life_. Who makes people buy their trust with _other people_?"

"Your sister should consider it a compliment," Azula told him, mouth slanting smugly. "My father's trust doesn't come cheaply."

It was true—it was true and Zuko knew that it was, knew _why_ it was. Things of great quality, great merit, had to be paid for, didn't they? People guarded what was precious, they didn't give it away; it only made sense. That Uncle had never made Zuko pay for his company, his advice, his regard—that Wan Liu had never made Zuko pay for her kindness, her trust—all that could ever mean was that they were both fools. _Who makes people buy their trust?_—people whose trust was _worth_ something, that was the answer.

And yet, Zuko could not help thinking, whose trust had cost _them_ more? Father's price, he levied against his son, his own family; Zuko had disrespected him, had caused him shame, but he was the Fire Lord. Surely Zuko could never truly harm him. To Wan Liu, Zuko had been a stranger—and a dangerous one besides, with his yellow eyes—and yet she had given him what Father would not, without even asking him to prove that he deserved it. Father would grant his trust to a prince who had regained his honor; but who would not trust an honorable prince? Wan Liu had granted hers to a peasant boy she should have hated, who was reviled and cast out. It was easy to see which came at the moment it was needed most—and wasn't that its own measure of value? Even if Father was a conquering king, and Wan Liu was a peasant so generous that it bordered on idiocy—

Azula was watching him. "They'll have our dear uncle any moment," she said quietly, "if they don't already. There's no one else who will come for you. I am all you have left."

It was true—wasn't it?

_Whatever family it is that you have left behind or lost_—

_You have three more sisters, if you want them_—

Zuko hesitated, mouth half open, no longer sure whether he intended to agree or disagree—and then the wall of the pit exploded.

* * *

><p>Katara shifted her weight from foot to foot, and tried not to look at General Iroh.<p>

They'd found the spot along the tunnel where Toph swore they came the closest to the crystal catacombs—what she'd actually said was that it "pinged". And now she was grinding away through the wall. Katara had offered to help, but Toph had said she didn't need it—that Katara might have been able to feel the tunnels but that didn't mean she'd be able to find Sokka and Yue by their heartbeats, and she wouldn't make it any easier for Toph to find them, either.

And she was probably right. But that meant Katara was stuck waiting in the tunnel, with Suki and Aang and General Iroh and all the things she couldn't let go of.

_There hasn't been a train to the west since the Great Siege._

_We could not have lasted much longer._

_I have never eaten so much shoe leather_; and it had sounded almost funny, when Professor Zei had said it—it would have been, even, if not for the look on his face, but now Katara couldn't stop thinking about it. Shoe leather, _shoe leather_—and that had been in the Middle Ring, at the university. It had to have been even worse in the rest of the city, worse than Katara could even imagine. And here was the man who'd done it, robed in green, looking so _calmly_ at Katara—

"How can you be here?"

General Iroh tilted his head. "My nephew and I had a great deal of help," he began, but he stopped when Katara shook her head.

"Not that," she snapped. "How can you—how can you _stand_ to be here? After everything you did to this city, how can you—"

General Iroh's face turned grave—but still, still, not angry. "I have done terrible things, Avatar," he said. "More of them than you know, though this city bore the worst. But having done them, it is the simple truth that I cannot undo them. My hands will never be clean; I know this, and I have learned to accept it. I chose badly, cruelly, selfishly, for a long time. Now I must do what I can to choose better."

"But—how can that ever be _enough_?" Katara said, more loudly than she'd meant to. "How can you just—"

She cut herself off, not sure how to even say it; and General Iroh looked at her carefully and then cleared his throat.

"You are angry with me," he said, "and that is fair. But it seems to me that perhaps I am not the only one you are asking when you ask these questions."

It took Katara a moment to figure out what he meant by that, and once she had, she wished she hadn't. She looked at him, swallowing, and then away—at the tunnel wall, lit vaguely green by the crystal in Suki's hand; at her own hands, her feet. The anger had left her, all of a sudden; she wanted it to come back. Anger was easier. "There are—there are lots of things wrong with Ba Sing Se—"

"Yeah, no kidding!" Toph said, from somewhere inside the pit she'd bent out of the tunnel's side.

"—but the Dai Li are doing whatever it is they're doing today because of me," Katara admitted.

"Katara," Suki said.

"You told me yourself, don't pretend you didn't. Long Feng lied to the king and manipulated him, he manipulated this whole city, but he killed the Council and he turned on the king because of _me_." Katara shook her head again, pressing her hands back against the tunnel wall behind her until the stone bit into her fingers. "This was the best chance anyone was ever going to have to stop the Fire Nation, and if we can't get this city back from the Dai Li today, if we really do have to run—it's gone. Joining the war is the last thing Long Feng's ever going to do, and I'm the reason why it's up to him—"

"Did you know he would do this?" General Iroh said.

"What? No, of course not—"

"Did you tell him to do it?"

"No!"

General Iroh raised his eyebrows in a gentle show of confusion. "Then how can you be the reason?" he said. "I have learned to hold myself responsible for my own choices, Avatar; perhaps what you must learn is not to hold yourself responsible for the choices of others."

"But if I can't stop him—"

"'You could never have saved them all.'"

Katara stopped and turned to look at Aang—he hardly ever interrupted her, except when he really had to.

He was looking at her knowingly, a little ruefully. "Remember? 'You could never have saved them all.' That's what you said to me." He drifted a little nearer, spreading his hands. "Long Feng's the one who decided to take out the Council, the one who decided to turn on the king." He smiled faintly, lopsided, not really amused. "I think I can tell where the fault lies."

He'd looked at her like that before, she thought—after Jindao, that was when, and for almost the same reason. It was just so _hard_ to let go, to stop thinking about everything she could have done differently. But if General Iroh could be believed, he knew what that felt like, and somehow he'd learned to—not be _okay_ with it, because how could you ever? To not let it keep him from trying, maybe.

Katara glanced back at General Iroh and realized with a sudden lurch of nerves that she had looked at Aang—_looked_ at him, actually turned her head, and the silence since the last person who _wasn't_ dead had talked was way, way too long—

"Your friend is right," General Iroh said.

Katara stared at him, open-mouthed.

"You can hear him?" Suki said, blinking.

"And see him," General Iroh added, and then proved it by turning to face Aang—exactly, precisely, not like he was guessing because he'd seen where Katara looked—and bowing. "I apologize, Avatar Aang. It seemed best to pretend otherwise, until an opportune moment came along."

"But you—how?" Katara said.

"I'm afraid that story takes a long time to tell," General Iroh said, "and this is not a good time to tell it. But your friend is right, and you should know it. Regretting your own mistakes can at least help you to avoid making them again. But holding yourself to account for the misdeeds of others—there is no one in this world strong enough to carry that kind of weight, Avatar." He reached out and put a hand on Katara's shoulder, and Katara stood still and let him. "Do everything you can to determine what is right, and then do everything you can to accomplish it. Sometimes you will still be wrong; but no one can ask more from you than that."

Katara looked at him silently and thought about it, letting the words roll around in her mind; and then there was a crunching of rock, and Toph stomped triumphantly out of her side tunnel.

"Found 'em!" Toph clapped her hands and then rubbed them together briskly. "Let's beat up the Dai Li first and chat about the dead kid later, okay?"

"_Toph_," Katara said, scolding; but she ended up having to raise her voice over the sound of Aang's startled laughter.

.*.

They left everything they couldn't use to fight with in the main tunnel, and then crept down the one Toph had built—probably nobody was listening for them, but today wasn't the right day to trust anything to luck. Aang went through the stone at the tunnel's end first, and came drifting back a moment later saying, "It's them, it's them! Um, not just them, though."

"Who else?" Katara said.

"Prince Zuko," Aang said—to her, without thinking, and then he darted a glance at General Iroh and added, "Your nephew. And a couple Dai Li, and—well. Princess Azula."

"_Azula_?" Katara said. "But we captured her!"

"The city guard would've told the Dai Li about a prisoner that important," Suki said, and Katara turned to look at her to find her looking back knowingly. "And if Long Feng wanted to avoid the war, and he knew the king wasn't going to listen to him anymore ..."

"And we just handed her off to them and left it at that," Toph said, shaking her head. "We were so stupid I almost feel bad for us."

And General Iroh—General Iroh didn't look surprised at all. "I had wondered why the Dai Li should have come for us today," he murmured.

"Well, there's your answer," Toph said, brisk. "There's a channel that goes over us, Katara—to a fountain, I think, and I can bust it when we break this tunnel open. I'm guessing you and Yue are going to want all the water you can get."

"Yeah," Katara said, and then, impulsively, "Thanks, Toph."

"Don't get all mushy on me _now_," Toph said, making a face. She turned and set her fists against the stone. "Come on, sugar queen, let's be rocks."

.*.*.*.

Suki braced herself against the side of Toph's tunnel, fans held tight; and when the rock face burst apart beneath Toph's and Katara's hands, she was ready.

They came out of the wall off to one side of the cave—not close enough to be between Sokka and Yue and Azula, but in a good position to get there. There was a rumble and a gush, and water started pouring down behind them; Katara lobbed two spears of ice at the nearest Dai Li agent and then a chunk of rock, and then curled a loop of water around his ankles and pulled.

Ahead of them, Princess Azula was reaching out toward Zuko, only a step away from him—but Toph punched an outcropping up under Azula's feet, knocking her away. General Iroh hurled a blast of flame past them at the other Dai Li agent, already moving to reach for Zuko himself.

The Dai Li agent Katara had knocked to the cave floor yelled something and slapped his hand against the floor before lifting it back up in a fist—and the stone followed suit, cracking upward in a line toward General Iroh's feet. Suki darted in and sliced across his back with one fan, smacked him in the wrist with the handle of the other; and then she was past, she was through—

Yue was closest; Suki snapped both fans carefully shut even as she hurled herself the last few feet, and then threw her arms around Yue's shoulders. It had troubled her even more than she'd realized, leaving them to the Dai Li like that—the sensation of relief, of weight lifting now that she could see they were both all right, was staggering.

Yue laughed, startled and pleased at the same time, and put an arm around Suki's back, squeezing tight for a moment. "We are glad to see you, too," she said, letting go, and smiled at Suki—and then yanked her down out of the way of a chunk of rock. Water was still spilling from the mouth of the tunnel, winding its way across the cave floor; Yue froze half of it a moment before a Dai Li agent stepped on it, and then yanked it out from under him while he was still falling, melting it back into a wall of water.

Suki ducked sideways to get out of her way—toward Sokka, who'd crossed his arms and was looking at her expectantly, a little petulantly. "Don't I get a hug, too?" he said.

His tone made it a joke, but Suki didn't laugh. It was almost enough to have him standing there in front of her, to be able to wrap her hands around his elbows and nudge their knees together—almost. She'd surprised him, she thought, not joking back at him: he was looking at her soberly now, reaching and turning his hands so he could clasp her forearms. "Can I?" she said.

"Can you—?" he repeated, frowning uncertainly; and then his expression cleared, his eyes going wide. "I—yes—you—_yes_, yes, please."

She'd meant to be serious about it, to show him she took this seriously, but she should have remembered it was still Sokka, and she laughed without meaning to. She was still laughing even as she leaned in, and when she finally kissed him, it was with a chuckle caught in the back of her throat—of course, she thought, of course, and broke away to laugh again.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Sokka said—still wide-eyed, with a hint of reverence that made Suki want to blush; but then he started to smile, too.

"We left your sword outside," Suki told him.

"Well," Sokka said, and held out a hand. "I don't suppose you've got a spare fan I could borrow?"

Suki flipped one around and held it out to him handle-first—and it was a stupid thing to think, with everything they'd been working for falling apart around them, but if there was anywhere she'd rather be than with Sokka at her back, one of her fans in his hands, then she couldn't think where it was.

* * *

><p>Azula had wanted to talk to Zuko alone, without distractions, and that was fair: whatever she meant to say to him, she would want to be able to say it exactly the way she thought was best, without interruption or interference.<p>

But what Azula wanted only held up to a point. A thunderous rumbling crunch of stone wasn't part of the plan; and Mai looked up at the sound, meeting Ty Lee's eyes, and said, "Something's wrong."

"But we're supposed to stay up here," Ty Lee said, eyes wide and nervous, "no matter what—"

"I don't think this is what she meant," Mai said.

Truthfully, Mai had been trying not to think about what Azula meant. Mai remembered Zuko best as a narrow weedy thirteen-year-old, unscarred and fascinatingly melodramatic—he had always _felt_ so much, so inconveniently; he had been unhappy and afraid and angry and had always shown it, even when everyone around him told him it would have been better not to. Mai had never understood him, and unsolved puzzles were the least boring thing there was.

But Mai had never known him all that well, not really, for all the time she'd spent watching Azula trick him into falling into the turtle duck pond; and it had been years now since she'd seen him. She had agreed to help Azula catch him, even if she wasn't sure what for, and she had meant it.

But that didn't mean she could have stood up here quietly and listened to him—screaming, or whatever Azula had had in mind when she'd said _no matter what_.

"You really think—"

"If someone is down there Earthbending," Mai said, "and it's not the Dai Li, then something's wrong."

Samnang looked at her and said nothing—but if she went down there, he'd probably follow.

Ty Lee bit her lip—and she was probably the only person in the world, Mai thought, who ever felt afraid _for_ Azula. Mai liked Azula, cared about her, was drawn toward her and wanted to run away from her in approximately equal measures some days; but that wasn't the same thing. "All right," Ty Lee said.

Mai leveled a stare at one of the Dai Li Azula had left with them, and the woman cleared her throat, inclined her head, and settled into an Earthbending stance.


	28. Choosing Sides, Part 2

The first thing Mai saw when they reached the base of the tunnel was—well, Ty Lee's ankles, as she did a flip off the stone the Dai Li agent had carried them down on. But the second thing was a blast of blue flame knocking a boulder out of the air, which meant there had to be an Earthbender down here who wasn't Dai Li, or was Dai Li but was fighting with Azula anyway.

Mai stepped off the stone onto the cave floor, reaching for a few of the knives in her sleeves, and almost immediately had to duck; something shattered against the rock behind her, and when she turned to look, she saw that it was ice.

A Waterbender—that girl from the north had been chucked in here, too, hadn't she? Or maybe the Avatar had come for her brother. Mai stayed low and edged sideways, until she could see the whole cave clearly.

Two more of the Dai Li Azula had left up in the catacombs were just coming out of the tunnel; the agent who'd brought Mai and Ty Lee down was gone again, probably to find reinforcements. Azula was easy to spot, all that blue fire and the occasional spark of lightning, and the girl from the north and her white hair were impossible to miss.

But not all the flame was blue. Mai ducked a little further to the side, and caught a glimpse of General Iroh around the edge of a pillar of stone somebody had raised out of the cave floor. That could account for it, certainly—but Zuko had to be somewhere down here, too.

There was the Avatar, wielding a dozen long arms of water at once; and there was the short girl, the Earthbender—Mai didn't know her name, but it was almost good to see her. When they'd been walking together outside the city, all those weeks ago, she'd been—interesting. And there was the Kyoshi Warrior, and the Avatar's brother, and—

Zuko.

He was standing almost all the way to the side, back to the wall, and he looked—Mai didn't know how to describe his face. He was watching General Iroh, the Avatar, and then his gaze would flicker to Azula; she whirled, arms out, and sent a blast of lightning crackling toward the Kyoshi Warrior, and Zuko grimaced, looking away, flattening his hands against the stone behind him.

There were six knives already pinned between Mai's fingers. Zuko was holding still, mostly; the fish in New Ozai's fountains had posed a much greater challenge than using two of the blades to pin Zuko's sleeves to the rock.

He felt them and flinched, turning his head to look at them and then for whoever had thrown them—and then he saw her and froze, and she took the opportunity to throw the rest. Three more around his torso, and the last, artful, into the stone a finger's-width from his face, just because she could. After a moment's thought, Mai threw it toward his unscarred cheek. She wasn't Ozai. Reminding Zuko of him was a game only Azula liked to play.

"Mai," he said.

"Zuko," she said, flat, and raised an eyebrow at him. "It's been a while."

"You're helping Azula."

She shrugged, plucking another knife from her sleeve and flipping it over in her hand. "It's not quite the same as ambushing you in the palace hallway to throw mud in your face," she said, "but it's better than New Ozai."

"Do you know what she wants?"

Mai looked at him, flipped the knife, and said nothing.

"In Port Tsao," Zuko said, "she—she told me she wanted to take me home, that Father had forgiven me. But that was a lie."

Mai looked away. Of course it had been a lie. It would have been easier that way, if Zuko had just walked onto Azula's ship willingly—it was no surprise that she'd tried it. But if the Fire Lord had truly rescinded the order he'd given, there would have been—there would have been announcements, there would have been formal declarations made to the ports in the colonies that Zuko's ship was no longer forbidden to enter Fire Nation waters. Word would have come to Father that if Zuko should approach the gates of New Ozai, he was not to be turned away.

"I've tried to think of what else it could be," Zuko said, low. "Of other things she might have been ordered to do. To capture me—because exile turned out to be ineffective, unsatisfying. To take me back so Father could punish me formally, publicly, and _then_ forgive me."

Mai grimaced—only slightly, but Zuko must have seen it.

"Yes," he agreed. "It seemed unlikely. To take me back to the Fire Nation and throw me in a pit, imprison me—maybe, but what would be the point?" He looked at her, gaze level, the handle of her knife nearly touching his cheek. "But there's another answer."

Mai felt her mouth go flat. He wasn't wrong—there _was_ another answer. Mai had just chosen not to look for it. And Azula hadn't said it, but then again it was Azula; she knew them, knew the open kindness of Ty Lee's soft heart, knew that the foregone conclusion of an execution wasn't the kind of interesting Mai looked for. And, perhaps, didn't know herself. Azula would have told Ozai she could do it, that she wouldn't hesitate, and probably that was true—but what would she be afterward, once she'd killed her brother and her uncle with her own two hands? Azula wouldn't think the answer to that question was important, as long as she'd succeeded, but that didn't mean she was right.

And Zuko—he'd been stupid when he was thirteen, and that was worth mud in the face; but not murder.

"You're different," Mai said, taking a step closer.

Zuko's face went dark.

"I don't mean your eye," Mai clarified.

Now Zuko just looked confused.

Mai leaned in and wrapped her hand around the knife next to his face; it came free with one good tug. Her knives were sharp and she threw them well, but that didn't mean they went very far into solid rock. "You're still proud and stupid and scared," Mai said. "You think too much and not enough. But you don't seem quite so—angry."

"When I was sent away, I used to think to myself that I'd die to have Father forgive me," Zuko said, very low. "But I'm not—I'm not sure that's true anymore."

"And you think Azula's going to kill you," Mai said, carefully bland.

Zuko looked at her and then away. "She told me she wants to help me," he said, and his indecision was obvious—Mai would never have let it show so clearly, but this was Zuko, who'd never learned to keep that kind of thing off his face.

"Of course she did," Mai said.

General Iroh had seen her, because of course he had—he'd been keeping an eye on Zuko since the day Ursa had stopped being able to, and took it very seriously. He'd been slowed down for a moment by a pair of Dai Li agents, but now he was headed toward Mai again, and he was almost—close—enough—

"Your shirt will tear free," Mai said.

"What?" Zuko said, but Mai didn't have time to answer: there was a blooming of light to the side. It was aimed courteously high, a warning shot, and Mai ducked backward and away beneath it and let General Iroh get between her and Zuko. She had two knives in one hand and three darts in the other; and she threw them at the rock wall in an arc around General Iroh's head and then rolled sideways behind an outcropping of crystal. Maybe Azula would figure it out, maybe Mai was being stupid—but Zuko dead and Azula forever her worst self wasn't the way Mai wanted this to end.

* * *

><p>Katara ducked under one blast of blue flame and threw a wall of water between her and the next—half of it boiled away in a sudden sharp hiss of steam, but Katara didn't catch on fire anywhere. Dai Li were closing in, one to either side; a quick stomp pushed up a pedestal of rock that heaved one up into the air, and then Katara yanked the rock sideways and threw it at the other. The agent cracked it apart easily—just in time for Katara to loop a rope of water around his ankles and freeze his feet to the cave floor.<p>

"Katara, watch out!"

Aang. Katara turned to see that the steam had cleared away. Azula was leaping, turning in the air, and the ends of Katara's hair were drifting upward strangely—she was going to do that lightning thing again. Katara hurriedly let go of all the water she was still touching, shoving it away to splatter against the ground, and dragged a chunk of stone up in front of her a moment before Azula let loose.

The bolt took a corner off the stone and cracked it down the middle besides; a second bolt crackled off the first at an angle, like a fork in a tree branch, and struck somewhere off to the side. Katara flinched away from the light and the noise and ducked to the other side—toward Toph's tunnel, she realized when she had caught her balance again, and Azula had noticed it, too.

Katara actually sort of _wanted_ to keep fighting, because it was the first time since this morning that she'd felt like she knew what she was doing. But there were more and more Dai Li coming down the tunnel from the catacombs—if they wanted to get out of here with Sokka and Yue, they were going to have to do it soon.

Sokka was only a couple paces away, delivering a sharp fan-smack to a Dai Li agent Toph had tripped up with a ridge of stone. Katara took half a step toward him and then hesitated. Yue was on her other side, fending off three more Dai Li while a dozen loops of water kept Ty Lee from getting close enough to hit her—she was going to need help if they were going to make a run for the tunnel—

"Don't let the Avatar escape!"

Azula—Azula had seen Katara move. There were at least a dozen Dai Li lined up behind the princess, just down from the catacombs, and they arranged themselves into a neat squared-off formation, settled their feet against the cave floor, and then _split_. One big step and a short solid motion of the arms outward, both fists clenched—half of them went one way and half of them went the other way, and the cave floor groaned and rumbled and then broke completely apart.

It was like Azula's lightning except that it was shadow, the crack in the ground darting jaggedly toward Katara's feet even as it widened into a chasm near the Dai Li. For a moment, Katara saw a blue shine that wasn't Aang—it had been so long, she hadn't gone anywhere near the Avatar State since General Fong had forced her into it, but she recognized the feeling of it right away: like she was cracking open to let something out. She could stop the Dai Li that way, she could stop _anything_—but General Fong had proven that she shouldn't think of it like it was nothing but a weapon, and the cave was big but not that big. Even in an open plaza, even in Gungsao's royal courtyard, she'd done more damage than she'd ever intended—

Katara swallowed the blue-white light down, blinked it away; and with clear eyes, she could see that the crack the Dai Li were making in the floor wasn't going quite toward Katara's feet. Off to the side—between Katara and the tunnel, and Katara realized what they meant to do and moved to stop it in the same instant.

She didn't have time to remember any of the moves she'd learned from Toph, any of the things they'd talked about; she just _reached_, deep down, the way she'd reached into the tunnel wall when Toph had asked her to. She reached and found an answer, like drawing water out of the desert, and she braced her feet against all that solid rock beneath her, clenched her fists, and held on.

The crack in the ground hit Katara's bending like it was a wall, careening sideways with a jolt. Sideways the right way, away from Toph's tunnel, and the rock splintered apart for another few paces and then stopped breaking—inches from Prince Zuko's toes.

Katara looked up: Prince Zuko was staring at her, wide-eyed. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was deal with him, when everything else had already gone so wrong—because General Iroh was right about the city, she knew it, even if she hadn't wanted to admit it. The Dai Li alone, they might have been able to stop; but the Dai Li and Azula, the Dai Li and whatever army Azula had brought into the city through those tunnels—they weren't prepared for that. Getting out of here all by itself was going to be hard enough, and trying to drag _Prince Zuko_ along while they did it was bound to be a disaster.

But General Iroh was on the wrong side of the chasm, not far from Yue—Zuko would have been on the wrong side, too, if the crack in the floor had gone where Azula had wanted it to go. But it hadn't, and he wasn't; and Katara _had_ promised.

She gritted her teeth and then yanked the stone under his feet sideways, hard, so that by the time he started to fall he was already close enough for her to grab his wrist.

"Let _go_, you—"

Katara didn't let go. "I'm going to regret this _so much_," she told him, and pulled.

.*.*.*.

The Dai Li tearing the rock apart like that made the whole cave floor shake, and for a moment Toph couldn't feel much of anything—except Katara's bending, deep, like the lingering tone of a gong. Weight here and there, maybe, one spot probably Suki and that other spot probably Sokka, but it was hard to tell. And it was like—it was like half the cave had stopped existing. The walls were still there, sure, but the middle might as well have been totally gone.

Katara, Suki, Sokka—"Yue!" Toph said, because Yue had been in the part that was gone now—

"_Go_," Yue shouted back, which was like the stupidest thing she'd ever said. There was a thwap like water hitting something, another thwap, and then somebody groaned—loud at first, like they hadn't been very far away from Toph, but quieter really quickly, like that was changing awful fast.

There were too many Dai Li down here already and more of them were coming, Toph could tell that—more than anybody using their eyes would even realize, footsteps piling up on each other like drums somewhere overhead—

Somebody grabbed her wrist. "Toph," Suki said, and Toph knew what she was going to say after.

Except half the word got drowned out by a sudden roar of fire—there _was_ somebody else over there by Yue. "You promised," Toph shouted at the missing half of the cave.

"And I have not forgotten," Tea Guy shouted back. "We will not come to harm, my friend. Go!"

He was lying, he was so totally lying—but Toph couldn't feel him, couldn't feel his heartbeat, and that made it easier to pretend he wasn't. She could still bridge the chasm; if she could get to it past the Dai Li, if she could get to Yue once she was on the other side, if they could both get all the way back—

"Toph," Suki said again, and Toph closed her stupid useless stinging eyes and followed where Suki was pulling her.

.*.

Busting that fountain pipe had been an awesome idea: Katara gathered the still-spilling water up behind them and froze the tunnel shut with a giant block of ice, and then she and Toph pulled a whole bunch of stone up after it. Either the Dai Li would have to go around it, or Princess Azula would have to waste time melting through it, and with Toph's tunnel closed up, it would be harder to tell which way to go after that.

Unless, of course, they could hear the shouting.

"—seriously _taking him with us_?"

"We said we'd get him out if we had the chance—just out of the city, Sokka—"

"When I complained about how the only other guy around here is dead, this is _not_ the solution I had in mind—"

"We promised," Toph said, and Sokka shut up. "We had to leave Yue, but we didn't have to leave her _alone_. That's got to be worth something."

"Oh, sure," Sokka said, "because Fire Nation general who killed thousands of people: trustworthy guy, or _most_ trustworthy guy?"

"My uncle will not break his word," said the other guy—Prince Zuko, apparently? He felt kind of familiar, but Toph hadn't ever met Zuko, she didn't think. Man, today had gotten ridiculously complicated.

"What, you want us to take your word for how we can take his word for it? You realize how silly that sounds, right?"

"Why don't we argue about this once we're _outside_ the city the Fire Nation just took over from the inside out?" Suki said.

.*.*.*.

After a little while fleeing in silence, they decided it might be a good idea to switch tunnels, to help keep the Dai Li off their trail. It was easier to bust up to the street again than to dig sideways—or at least it should have been.

"Hey, wait a second," Toph said, grabbing Katara's sleeve before she could haul herself out onto the street.

"What?" Katara said, and then something—some rumble, maybe the glint of light off metal—had her ducking, a moment before one of those gigantic tanks could paste her to the paving stones.

"Wow," Sokka said from below her, when it was gone. "How many of those things do you suppose Azula brought, anyway?"

"I'm going to guess 'too many'," Katara said slowly, distracted. There had been something on the bottom of the tank, a hatch or something, and it had looked oddly familiar—like Katara had seen it before, or seen something like it. That big gear-thing to open it with, there had been one somewhere else—"The gate."

"What?" Sokka said.

"It was like the gate, the gate at Hansing," and the joints, the joints like those siege ladders, and _oh_. They'd gathered their packs back up on the way out—Katara yanked hers off her back and tore it open. They were still in here somewhere, they had to be, she'd had them when they'd unpacked at the university—and yes, yes, her fingers closed on a tube of rolled-up papers.

"Oh, no way," Sokka said. "No _way_ are we that lucky!"

"Why?" Toph said. "What?"

"The plans Shu Sen gave you," Suki said, catching on, as Katara unrolled them. "They're for those things?"

"This is it," Sokka said, wrapping a hand excitedly around Katara's ankle—the only part of her he could reach, since she'd pulled the tunnel floor up into a column to lift herself up to the tunnel roof. "This is how we don't die! Azula's bound to start the Dai Li looking for us, but they'll be looking for _us_, not one of their own tanks."

"Oh, sure," Toph said, "we'll just walk up to one and knock—"

"Let's call that the back-up plan," Sokka said, wry. "We've got _two_ totally awesome Earthbenders—I think we can come up with a way to get inside one of those things."

Katara looked down at him—he wasn't quite smiling, the thought of Yue captured still a little too close for it; but his face was bright, determined, and he tightened his grip on her ankle and then shook it, just a little.

"We can do this," he said, and Katara took a deep breath and believed him.

.*.*.*.

"I ought to kill you, Uncle," Princess Azula said.

Yue kept her eyes low and did her best to swallow her surprise.

It had not taken the Dai Li very long to pin them down with stone, to drag them away to some Ministry building or other—but even that had been long enough for Katara and the others to get away safely, so Yue had nothing to regret. Ty Lee had been the one to do it, in the end; with so many Dai Li approaching, Yue had lost track of her, and there was no one who could make you pay for that like Ty Lee. She'd struck Yue in the shoulder and the elbow on one side, half the water Yue had been bending splattering to the ground, and then it had been easy for the Dai Li to cuff Yue's defenseless hand in rock. And onehanded, even Yue could only do so much.

And even General Iroh, the Dragon of the West, could do only so much to help her, though Yue had not known it was him at the time.

She remembered what had happened in Kanjusuk: Prince Zuko was the boy she had frozen to the wall, she'd known it the moment she'd seen his eye; and later, when they'd been hiding behind the bamboo waiting for Katara, Zhao had been talking to _someone_—calling him General, talking about Ba Sing Se. It was all blurred by what had come after, Zhao reaching into the pool for the moon and that incredible, terrible pain, and Yue hadn't seen his face in any case.

He hadn't seemed like the Dragon of the West then. Yue could not remember precisely what it was he had said to Zhao, but she did remember the sound of his voice: quiet, gently sorrowful, deeply certain. At the time, she had thought he must not be so bad, whoever he was, if he was arguing with Zhao.

But not so long ago he had blasted Dai Li away from her with blazing arcs of flame, fire raging past her without so much as singeing the ends of her braids—it had been remarkable bending. And now Princess Azula was gazing down at him where he knelt and calling him "Uncle". Yue had served tea at enough meetings of her father's council to know what that meant.

"As your father asked you to do, I have no doubt," General Iroh said.

"You'll admit, I hope, that you left him little choice in the matter," Princess Azula said with a vaguely scolding air, tone casual, crossing her arms. "Surely you can see you were living on borrowed time the moment he took the throne. And then leaving like that with poor Zuko—oh, I suppose you were a more direct threat in certain ways when you were in the capital, but roaming the countryside with the Fire Lord's disinherited older child? Really, Uncle. Civil wars have started over much less."

"Is that why?" General Iroh murmured.

There was a moment's silence. "You have to ask?" Azula said, more slowly. The chiding look—a mask, a joke—left her; her gaze turned focused like an owl hawk's, and she crouched down until she was on a level with General Iroh. "You dishonored him. You _shamed_ him. Just like Mother, just like Zuko. At least Zuko has the sense to be sorry for it. I ought to kill you," she repeated, low, utterly sincere.

"And yet?" General Iroh said, looking back at her calmly.

"And yet Father isn't a fool," Azula said, straightening, and at last she looked away—that strange sharp focus was gone, and she spoke like a niece to an uncle again, conversational. "Zuko would take anything Father chose to give him and be grateful for it. The threat's never been Zuko himself so much as what he might be used for by others; Father knows that. But the Avatar—"

Yue could not help it: her head came up. She had been glancing sideways, watching from the corner of her eye, but now she met Azula's gaze—met it because Azula was looking at her, waiting, the corner of her mouth curling into a smirk, like she'd known all along what it would take to get Yue to look at her.

"The Avatar," Azula repeated, "well. She is another matter. And here I find you've been traveling with her, Uncle! How long, hmm?"

"A day," General Iroh said. "Less."

"A day," Azula said, "for the Avatar—a Water Tribe Avatar, no less, and we both know how those resentful beasts hold grudges—to trust _you_? To bring you along to save her friends?" She raised her eyebrows, and then dismissed the idea with a flick of her fingers. "The more we know about her—her powers, her weaknesses—the easier it will be to bring her down. Of course we do have this one," and she tilted her chin toward Yue, "but I think anything you can be convinced to tell Father will probably have much greater tactical value. You were the Dragon of the West, after all, and it's hard to stop seeing the world through a general's eyes. And if you refuse to be useful—" She shrugged, elegantly casual. "Father can lop your head off himself. Win-win, I'd say."

"Mm," General Iroh said.

Azula grinned at him, brilliant, and then turned back to Yue again. "And you," she said, gaze assessing. "You could be at least as useful, if you chose to. You've been traveling with her—mm, weeks, at least, to get here from the Northern Water Tribe's lands. You might not have a strategist's eye for vulnerability, but you could still tell us something worthwhile. Perhaps if you swore allegiance to my father after he captured the Avatar, he would even let you live."

Yue looked up at her and thought for a moment, and then found herself smiling. She already knew what to say; she had already said it. "I have said this to your face," she told Azula, "but not to you, and I am glad to say it again: if you get your hands on Katara, it will be because I am already dead."

Azula did not look as though she believed it—but the truth was the truth, Yue thought, whether it was believed or not. "Well," Azula said after a moment, "let's see whether I can't change your mind."

"You are welcome to try," Yue said, inclining her head.

Azula looked at her thoughtfully. "Secure them until we are finished here," she told the Dai Li ringing the walls; and then she left them kneeling there on the floor, sweeping away through the grand double doors without looking back.

There was silence for a few moments in her wake; and then General Iroh leaned toward Yue a little and murmured, "I know you have no reason to believe me, Princess Yue, but I will do all I can to keep you alive."

Yue met his gaze. On the one hand, if she did try to escape from Azula, she could not say she minded the idea of having help. On the other hand—she had heard the stories about the Dragon of the West. But he had come into the cave with Katara, and surely that meant something.

He looked at her wryly, understandingly. "It will be easier if you—can bring yourself to trust me," he said, very low.

"And if I cannot?" Yue murmured.

Some sadness crept over his face at that, some muted sorrow that Yue felt went deeper than she could see; but all he said was, "Then it will be harder."

"Well," Yue said, and decided even as she said it. "I think it will already be difficult enough, General. I would be a fool to make it worse."

General Iroh looked at her searchingly for a moment and then smiled. "If we are going to spend any time together at all," he said, "there is something very important I will need to know about you. Tell me, Princess Yue: how do you feel about tea?"

* * *

><p>Yin had always liked to rise early, even when she didn't need to; granted, on the farm with Mother, she had almost always needed to, and armed service had not been much more lenient. But Yin had always liked it, always—and there was a whole separate loveliness to watching the sun rise from a ship, out on the water, on a quiet morning.<p>

There was also, perhaps, a whole separate loveliness to the last time one might find oneself doing anything. Yin had caught herself lingering over her armor, too, buckling the straps like it was calligraphy, putting on her boots like every motion was a brushstroke; and now the sunrise. It should not have been pretty at all—it was a sickly, angry sort of red, the sun coming up behind what had to be a tremendous screen of smoke. Ba Sing Se, burning, for even if the princess meant to keep the city intact, there would still be flames on the morning of a Fire Nation victory. But even knowing that, Yin found herself gazing at it and thinking it was beautiful, soaking it in like she had never seen a sunrise before in her life.

Her squadron commanders were away, headed back to their own flagships—it was light enough to see the leading edge of motion on the road to the Serpent's Pass, like a wave in the distance, and that meant there was very little time left. The ships were already moving, those nearest the coast readying their catapults, forming a wall four ships deep. Three ships deep soon, Yin dared to hope, and perhaps that would be enough to change the things people would say about today, whether she was alive to hear them or not.

Her flagship was not nearest the Pass; that spot Paozun had rightly reserved for himself. But Yin had, out of consideration for her rank, been granted a position for herself and her ships along the coastline. Not quite where she needed to be in order to do what she meant to do, but it would be relatively easy to maneuver there once it was time.

Yin squinted at the smoke-red sun, creeping slowly higher. She'd told herself so many times that she should have thought her actions through more carefully—that she should have taken a moment to consider the consequences before she did things like help the Avatar escape or run commanding officers through with her sword. But this seemed to be taking all the time in the world, all the time the world had left to give her; and still, still, she was committing herself with reckless certainty to a path that surely could not end well.

Maybe she was just an idiot, and had been all along.

"Sir."

"Lieutenant," Yin said without looking. Who else would it be?

"It'll be time soon, sir," Kishen said, stepping up to the rail beside her—though still with his hands clasped respectfully in front of him, halfway to a salute without even bowing.

"Mm," Yin said, wrapping her hands around the rail. "I shouldn't have given it to you."

"What, sir?"

"The transfer," Yin said. "To my unit. I shouldn't have given it to you." She smiled at him, sidelong, making light of a thing that shouldn't be made light of—what else could be done with it, at a time like this? "Look what you've gotten for it."

"If you tried to take it back, sir," Kishen said, "I'd just ask for it again."

"You are a madman," Yin marveled, and then shook her head, looking out again at the water. "But I'm grateful for it. I hope you know that."

"I'm glad to hear you say it, sir," Kishen said, and then hesitated. "I suppose I ought to be afraid of it. Dying, or being executed, or whatever's going to happen to me today. Probably I will be," he added baldly, "when it gets a little closer. But right now—right now it sounds so much worse, to think you could be here doing this alone; and I could be sitting back in the mess-hall in Jindao not knowing a damn thing about it, just—eating my breakfast and wishing I were still asleep." He shook his head, looking down at his hands, and then met Yin's gaze. "I'm not sorry, sir. Not for any of it."

"You _are_ a madman," Yin repeated, not unkindly; and Kishen laughed and shook his head again.

"Because I'm not sorry to be able to do a good thing—a thing that will matter?"

Yin looked away from his face, the smile lingering around the edges of his mouth; ahead of her there was a smoke-red sun and a burning city, thousands of people running for their lives, the tide of a hundred years of war coming in—no one person could be anything but small in the face of it. "Surely you are too generous," she murmured.

"It will matter to someone, sir," Kishen said, serious again, and then he hesitated again and touched her arm, waiting until she turned to him to speak again. "For the greater glory of the Fire Nation," he added, and Yin could see in his face that he meant it.

"For the greater glory of the Fire Nation," she agreed, and hoped quietly that he was right.

.*.*.*.

Ukara was the one who saw it first.

Not the ships moving—that had been happening all morning. Nobody had signaled at their little scouting vessel except to tell them to get out of the way; a clear space had formed like a road behind the ships nearest the shore, and they'd steered a little way into it and then sideways toward the Serpent's Pass, as out of the way as they could get when they could not leave the South Yellow Sea.

Whatever was happening on shore, too, was not new. Something had happened in Ba Sing Se, that much was easy to tell. Something people had begun to flee from the day before, had fled from all night long, if they were reaching the Serpent's Pass now—and lucky for them that the road to the Pass was so flat, that they lived in a land of Earthbenders who could so easily make their journey faster.

But Ukara had the spyglass out to look at them, and she turned with it still to her eye, about to lower it and hand it back to Mikama, when she stopped and turned back. "Something is happening," she said, leaning out against the rail.

She should have said it happily, Mikama thought, should have _sung_ it—something happening, at last! But Ukara's voice was grim; and Mikama wished suddenly to be returned to any one of the thousand days it felt like they had been trapped here, mired in uncertainty, if it only meant she would not have to know why Ukara was saying it like that.

But today, it seemed, would not be the day Mikama's wishes chose to begin coming true. "Mikama," Ukara said, "Mikama—" and turned, grabbing Mikama's arm hard enough to bruise, lowering the glass—and her face, wide-eyed and helplessly angry, was lit suddenly from the side with a blaze of yellow.

Mikama flinched from the sudden light and then realized what it must be even as she turned to look—and she did not want to look anymore, but at the same time she had to.

Ukara must have caught sight of a catapult being wound, perhaps even loaded. It was the lighting of it that had caused that glow, and now even as Mikama looked, the catapult missile was whistling away toward the shore.

They were aiming low, the flattest arc they could manage, so that the burning pitch would skip and roll—Mikama closed her eyes and reached out helplessly for the rail, feeling abruptly unsteady. "We have to do something," she said, "we have to—"

Ukara let the spyglass drop to the deck with a clank and caught Mikama by the shoulders, shaking her until she opened her eyes again. "We cannot," Ukara said, "we _cannot_."

"Why," Mikama spat, "because it is not _safe_?" A hiss, another, a low crackle beginning to build—she could see more lights in the corner of her eye, more and more, and then there was a crack and a groan and another catapult stone went flying out into the air—

"Because we cannot! We are _one ship_, Mikama, one little scouting ship—there is nothing we can do—"

"There must be, there _must_," Mikama said, knocking Ukara's hands away, and she turned toward the hatch to the bridge to find Hakoda already stepping out of it, Bato at his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the coast.

He gazed out at the ships, at the water, at the fires, and his face said the same thing Ukara was saying—Mikama did not want to hear it and looked away, squeezing her eyes shut, and then Ukara caught her arm again and did not let Mikama shake her off. "Wait," Ukara said. "Wait. Look."

.*.*.*.

The advantage was with the Fire Nation fleet, there was no denying it. The Serpent's Pass did not run neatly east-to-west; it touched the western bank of the Seas somewhat to the south, and the eastern bank to the north. The road from Ba Sing Se went along the shore a little way before the Pass began—there was no way to reach the Pass itself without crossing within range of a ship at the edge of the South Yellow Sea, unless you veered far to the north. And desperation had a way of steering your feet in straight lines.

Exhaustion did, too. Pei Ma's vision was blurry with it, and she had very little to carry. She had sped the ground beneath the feet of others—all the Earthbenders had, or at least all the ones she had passed—but she had sped it beneath her own, too, and she did not have children in her arms.

The shaking in the ground had unsettled people all by itself, the rumbling of stone coming again and again when there were not any trains to make it; and then the city guard had been called away from the gates. By the time word of anything at all had come to the Lower Ring, there had already been smoke in the sky, and Pei Ma had been climbing the wall. She had known what that meant—the black-flame banner draped half over the Middle Ring wall, visible once she'd reached the walltop, had only confirmed it.

And now this: a great black wall of ships against the dim western sky, and they had no choice but to run its length like a gauntlet. The first catapult missile hadn't caught them by surprise—how could it, hurtling through the air like a falling star? But there was nothing to be done except run.

Run, or Earthbend. Pei Ma did what she could for the crowds around her, drawing walls as high as she was able to out of the ground or knocking the flaming balls of pitch away with boulders—but she could tell already that it would not be enough.

She heard the roar of fire before she saw what had made it. At first, Pei Ma could only guess that it was another catapult launching—in the wrong direction entirely, almost straight up. She thought to herself that the soldier who had launched it would surely be punished, and was grimly glad to think it; and then she stomped another length of stone out of the ground before glancing up to find she had been wrong.

It was not another catapult. A spur of flame like a beacon, coming from the deck of one ship to the south along the coast—celebration? Very like the Fire Nation, Pei Ma thought; and yet oddly early, for all that this could not be considered any kind of true battle.

A catapult missile struck the corner of Pei Ma's wall and broke it, crumbling rock covered in flaming pitch—someone behind her cried out. But the missile had been slowed by the impact. Pei Ma caught an elbow in the back as she turned around from someone fleeing past, but she was still quick enough to punch a rough pillar up out of the ground, and the missile slammed into it and then tumbled to the ground.

The boy who had shouted was a few feet behind her pillar—still ducking away, at first, and then he straightened, staring. The ball of pitch was at least as tall as he was, and still blazing; but the grass was dead and spring-wet beneath it, so he would not die just because he was too stupid to run away.

He was young, Pei Ma thought. About the same age as Pei Ma's grandson would have been—the same age but luckier.

Pei Ma dodged around the burning pitch and grabbed his arm, pulling. There was already another whistling crackle coming toward them, and Pei Ma could not raise another wall and run at the same time, her skill with Earthbending had never been as great as that—

The boy shouted again—but not in fear, this time. "Look!"

Pei Ma tugged him closer, so that he was entirely behind the paltry shelter of her body, and looked.

The nearest ship was moving—so the Firebenders on its decks could blast away at them, Pei Ma thought bitterly, or so that it could draw close enough to shore to unleash the soldiers waiting in its belly. Except—except it was too close to the next ship over, arrowing between that ship and the shoreline. Much too close: its bow scraped the side of the other ship's stern with a spray of sparks. And then a catapult missile came flying over that bow, and—there was a glow, bright, and then it fell into the sea, plunging into the water with a deafening rush of steam.

Pei Ma would have said there was no way to explain it, because the curve of its path made no sense; it had not been launched at the wrong angle, there was no reason why it should cross the nearer ship and then _drop_ like that. Unless someone had knocked it down with that blast of fire—but the only person who could do that was a Firebender.

The nearer ship drew northward even further, sidling closer to the shore—too close, Pei Ma thought, and the next catapult missile slammed into it amidships instead of reaching the shore. And there was another ship behind it, another and another. The screaming had diminished, Pei Ma realized suddenly, though people were still running.

She had slowed to a stop, the boy still beside her, and she could not Earthbend and run at the same time, but if she did not have to run—

"Can you bend?" she snapped at the boy.

"A little," he said, wide-eyed.

It would have to be enough. Perhaps it had been an accident, a miscommunication—Pei Ma thought about that column of fire, that missile towed down into the sea, and was not sure what to believe. But whatever the reason, those ships had bought her time, and with time, she could build a real wall.

"Do what I do," she said to the boy, and planted her feet against the ground.

.*.*.*.

Mikama stared; and then squinted into the distance, blinking; and then all at once remembered to duck down and pick up the spyglass.

There was a space left between the ships too far away to fire and the ships authorized to act—that was where they were now, and easy enough to work out. And a space had been left between the ships that were meant to fire and the shore; too close, and the catapults would hit somewhere back along the road's length but no nearer, which was apparently not what the admiral in charge had wished to do.

That tower of light had been a signal, sure enough. But a signal of what, to whom? The ships that were moving now had broken away into the second space, between the firing ships and the shore—_between_, and either they had coordinated this movement with the firing ships very poorly, or else—

"What are they doing?" Hakoda said, urgent.

"Saving them," Mikama said, because nothing else made sense. "Whoever is on shore, whoever the fleet is meant to be firing at—they are saving them."

It could have been error; but the Fire Nation was not known for its lack of precision, and surely no officer junior enough to make so fundamental a mistake would have been put in charge of so many ships. And to make such a mistake and keep making it—for the ships were not turning back, were not making any kind of adjustment. Had Earth Kingdom spies taken over the ships somehow? Had a Fire Nation admiral been bribed—threatened—moved somehow to mutiny?

"And they will be slaughtered for it," Ukara said.

Mikama lowered the spyglass and looked at her: her gaze was fixed on the ships in the distance, her face grim.

"They could—"

"Look at them," Ukara said, sharp. "There are not enough of them."

She was not wrong—even now, Mikama could see that the ships that had been settled quietly behind their scouting vessel were coming awake, smokestacks that had been silent starting to belch black clouds again, and there was a distant chorus of shouts. Once the portion of the fleet that had lain inactive moved into position, there would be no chance of escape whatsoever—and the commander of those ships had to know it.

"There must be something we can do for them," Bato said.

"When we cannot even get _ourselves_ safely away," Hakoda began, shaking his head, but Mikama did not let him finish.

"Because we could not afford to be noticed—we can afford it now. We can join them and run, if we can only work out how—"

"Simple," Ukara said, and when Mikama turned to look at her incredulously, she shrugged. "There are only two ways to leave this sea: the river and the Pass."

"The _Pass_," Mikama began, because it was mad to call a wall a doorway—and then she saw all at once what Ukara meant. She laughed, because she could not figure out what else to do with the sudden stab of hope in her chest; and then she turned to Hakoda and saluted, and said, "Permission to bring the prisoners on deck, sir?"

Hakoda stared at her, and then all at once his eyes widened, and he turned to look assessingly at the Pass. They were not so very far away—and the ships nearest the Pass that sailed in front of them had begun to turn toward the mutinous ships, leaving an even clearer path. "Do you think they can do it?"

"Do you think they _will_ do it, more like," Bato said.

"We will never know," Mikama said, "if we do not ask."

.*.

The prisoners looked at Mikama warily when she unlocked their cells—she had taken her helmet off but not her armor, and it was too dim below for them to see anything her eye color could tell them. "On deck," she said to them, "now—please," and they looked at her more warily for the _please_, and more warily still when she did not bind their hands before opening the door.

She made them go up ahead of her, because she could not imagine what they might think was happening—that they would be thrown overboard, perhaps—and did not want them to run until they had the chance to hear the truth.

Hakoda was waiting by the hatch when they came up at last from below; and the fifth prisoner, the angriest, leveled a hard-edged stare at him and said, "If you fear we have found you out, you have reason, Captain, and you had better drown us or all the Earth Kingdoms will know—"

"Oh, be _silent_, Guodan," said one of the tall quiet brothers, catching Guodan by the shoulder and holding him back where he would have taken another step toward Hakoda.

"On the contrary," Hakoda said. "Tell me more. What will they know?"

Guodan glared at him fiercely and said nothing.

"We know you are not Fire Nation," said the other tall quiet brother, "but we have not been able to decide who you are instead. Traitors from a nearby kingdom who have given yourselves over to the Fire Nation for money or fear—or perhaps Earth Kingdom spies, and we should not interfere with your work. You can, I think, guess which Guodan considers more likely."

"I can," Hakoda agreed. "Unfortunately for him, the answer is: neither." He had retrieved his spear from the bridge, and for Mikama it might as well have been a painted sign; but the Earth prisoners evidently had not noticed it. Hakoda reached up toward his neck instead, catching a finger beneath the cord of his necklace and pulling: tiger seal teeth and pieces of ice crab shell, blue and white and polished, nothing any Earth Kingdom soldier would own. "We are Water Tribe warriors from the south—we took on this disguise to learn what fate this fleet had planned for Ba Sing Se, but we could not put the knowledge to any worthwhile use. I am Chief Hakoda," he added, and then stopped.

All five of their faces had changed—Guodan's the most dramatically. "Chief Hakoda," he repeated, eyes round. "You are the Avatar's father."

Mikama had begun to look away, intending to share an amused glanced with Ukara, but at this she jerked back around to look at Guodan. When Bato had caught up with them, fully healed at last after their battle in the northwest, he had told them all the story of his encounter with Katara and Sokka: how far they had traveled, the Kyoshi Warrior who accompanied them; that Katara had discovered herself not only a Waterbender, not only a healer, but the Avatar returned. But that these men should know it—

"You have met the Avatar?" Hakoda said. "You have—you have seen Katara?"

"In person, only for a moment," said Guodan, "but she is the reason we are here. We were sent by the king of Ba Chang, as emissaries to the royal house of Shuming Wo, with a message from the Avatar—she was staying at the palace in—"

He stopped abruptly; _Ba Sing Se_, he did not say, and Mikama forced herself not to look at the shadow of the city in the distance, the smoke that billowed toward the sky from somewhere behind its walls.

"It was days ago," said one of the tall quiet brothers, solemn. "There is no telling whether she is still there."

Hakoda looked at him gravely for a moment, and his grip on his spear tightened. "Whether she is or not," he said, in a voice like the words hurt his throat, "it does not matter—we can do nothing for her from here. We brought you on deck because we think you may be able to help us, and we hope you will choose to do so."

He nodded to Bato, who explained what they wanted and why—Mikama handed the spyglass to Guodan when he asked her for it, and Guodan gazed through it at the Fire Nation ships they hoped to save and shook his head wonderingly. "Ba Sing Se defeated, the chief of the Southern Water Tribe dressed in Fire Nation armor, a Fire Nation mutiny—how many more impossible things will I see today?"

"That depends on you," Mikama said, dry. "Can you do it?"

Guodan glanced at her, and then at the Pass.

"You can't be serious," burst out another prisoner—the fourth man, the one with the unpleasant face who had spat on Mikama when she gave him water. "If Fire Nation soldiers want to set each other on fire, then _let_ them! What do we care?"

He moved forward, as though to push Guodan aside—and met the end of Ukara's club, leveled at his throat. "You care because if you do not do it," she said, "we will all die here; and I will make sure you are not the last to go."

"I think we can all agree it is a compelling argument, Hao," Guodan said, gaze fixed on Ukara; and then he looked at Hakoda and nodded. "I can promise nothing, there are only three of us—but we will try."

.*.*.*.

Yin stumbled as the ship shook beneath her, catching herself awkwardly against the hatch—a sharp pain shot through her wrist, but she didn't think it was broken, and she had other things to worry about.

Her Firebenders were doing their best, knocking catapult missiles down and sideways into the sea, or up and backward over the ships that had fired them. But there were so many—they couldn't help but miss some, and her ship was large and well-constructed but could only take so much.

Burning pitch was spattered across the deck, smoke everywhere; Yin could have looked over the rail and seen the missile that had just hit the ship, melting against the hull with its own heat, but her hair would probably catch fire if she did. The heat was incredible. She had already earned herself a blistered cheek, struck by a stray drop of pitch as it flew through the air. She'd scraped it from her face with her fingers, reflexive, and burned those, too; and floating cinders drifted through the air like spirit-lights, speckling her face and hands with little sparks of pain.

But they had done what they meant to do. Yin had ordered the signal cast, and almost all four squadrons she had expected, out of the six she commanded, had followed her. Oh, a few ships here and there had moved against, division commanders or captains who could not bring themselves to choose as she had chosen; but that had been made up for by the blissful surprise of a half-squadron breaking off from Paozun's fleet—not even ships of hers!—and following where she led.

Yin could not see the shore, everything beyond the rail hopelessly gray. But she could still see those few missiles which did not hit her ships and were not hurled aside by her benders, and they no longer flew away into the distance. It seemed there were Earthbenders enough on the ground to have built some kind of barricade—Yin only hoped it would be enough once her ships had all been sunk.

Which would surely happen before much longer. Yin lurched a step further and caught the shoulder of the woman nearest her—Lieutenant Feizin, Yin could see her face now—who had just blasted another missile off sideways into the side of the Serpent's Pass. "To the boats," Yin shouted—they carried sampans enough that not all her crew had to die today—and then another missile struck and Yin and Feizin were both thrown to the deck.

Molten pitch splashed across Yin's armor—and then Feizin pulled the heat from it with a curl of her fingers, quick, and left Yin sticky but none the worse for wear. "Sir," Feizin said, and reached to help Yin up; and then another hand found Yin's other elbow.

"Sir," Kishen said. He looked no better than Yin felt, streaked with soot, a patch of sleeve along one forearm burned mostly away—but his expression was fierce and pleased. "Sir, look."

Yin followed the line of his pointing arm, squinting through the smoke toward the Serpent's Pass. There was a ship there—not one of Yin's, a tiny little scouting ship, and in front of it—

In front of it, there was a slowly growing gap.

.*.*.*.

Together, Pei Ma and the boy had built up a low shieldwall leading over toward the Serpent's Pass—at first people had simply run toward the shelter it provided, but then another Earthbender had joined them in their task, and another and another, and all told the wall now ran down the coast nearly as far as it was needed. Blazing missiles were still hurtling over it, but too high to do any damage to the people crowded up behind it.

Pei Ma stopped at last, wiping the sweat from her face and gazing over her shoulder at the burning plain behind her—and then caught sight of sudden motion out of the corner of her eye. "Boy—!"

He was already out of reach, running toward the Pass—most were now stopping to rest, but a steady flow of people had begun the crossing. Except not so steady after all, Pei Ma saw. Something was slowing them.

"Stop it!" the boy was shouting, shoving between people who'd come to a halt; Pei Ma followed in his wake, up the slope of the Pass, and was only a few paces behind when he ran up to a man in a bending stance and kicked him promptly in the shin.

"What are you doing, boy?" the man shouted, and shoved the boy away.

"Stop it," the boy repeated, shrill. "Can't you see what they're trying to do?"

"Keep us from escaping," the man snapped.

But Pei Ma could see what the boy meant. The bending man was standing at the edge of a gap—not so very wide, yet, but even as Pei Ma watched, it crunched a little further open. And it was right in front of those ships, that line of ships that had saved them.

"They're trying to get away! We were, too, and they helped us—and you're stopping them—"

Pei Ma caught the boy's shoulder before he could kick the man again. "Look at what you're doing," she said to the bending man, to the others behind him—there were six in a line across the width of the Pass, all looking over now even though the boy had only managed to kick one. "How are they opening this gap? There are Earthbenders down there."

"Prisoners," the man said, "or traitors—"

"Those ships saved us," Pei Ma said, and the words tasted less bitter than she had expected. "I don't know why, but they did—is this what they deserve in return?" Arguing for the sake of Fire Nation soldiers—Gu-Yang would never have believed it, _Pei Ma_ barely believed it.

But the boy was right. Pei Ma set her feet against the stone of the Pass and reached out, shoved; and the opposite side of the gap crumpled up another foot or so. The boy hurried to copy her, lining up their feet and hands, and the next time Pei Ma pushed outward, the rock crunched back still further.

"Look, woman," the bending man said angrily—but then he paused. He had not been the first across the Pass; there were some who had been quicker, on the far side of the gap, and three of them had noticed what was happening and turned back. Earthbenders, all three, and they were helping: they stood well back from the edge, and when Pei Ma and the boy pushed again, they pulled.

"We can close it again once they're gone," one of the other benders said, clapping the first man on the shoulder, and then he lined himself up on the boy's far side and nodded toward Pei Ma, and pushed.

"You are all idiots," said the first man, sighing; and then he cracked a boulder off the side of the Pass, and hurled it over the nearest fleeing ship. Toward another, Pei Ma saw, that had been preparing to fire: the boulder slammed into one side of the half-wound catapult and crushed it against the one beside it.

"You aren't wrong," Pei Ma murmured, and shoved again; and the first ship sailed through the gap and was free.

* * *

><p>Katara sat and stared at the wall and tried not to think.<p>

It wasn't working very well.

Sokka had been right: a couple carefully placed "bumps" in the street, and they'd had a tank of their very own. Toppling one over on its side had made it easy to get to the hatches underneath, and the soldiers inside had all been busy scrambling for footing on what had been supposed to be a wall—they hadn't put up much of a fight. Katara had tipped the tank back upright with a couple paving stones, Toph had felt around for another tunnel and then opened it up for them, and Sokka had figured out how to drive the thing from Shu Sen's schematics—with a few false starts, but he was getting pretty good at it.

And the tunnel—the tunnel led right outside the city, outside the outer wall. General Iroh had been right: Azula and Long Feng had to have been working on them for weeks. The Dai Li must have been the ones to dig them, or else it would have taken years, Katara could guess that much.

And now—they weren't even back where they'd started, they were _worse_ than that. Katara still didn't know what she was doing; they still weren't ready for the Day of Black Sun; they still didn't have a plan to stop the Fire Lord—and they'd lost Yue, lost the largest Earth Kingdom in the world, and were running for their lives. Katara felt like she should have been screaming, crying, tearing her hair out, but it was—it was too much, too awful to react to. She couldn't figure out what to do with the immensity of it; so she sat and stared at the wall instead.

Aang didn't seem to know what to say either—but he was still there, a comforting blue-white gleam at the edge of her vision. If he'd disappeared, gone back to the spirit world—if she'd failed badly enough that whatever had sent him here had decided even his guidance couldn't possibly help her now—

She squeezed her eyes shut and tipped her head back against the wall.

.*.

Katara didn't know how much time passed before she heard the footsteps, but it had to have been a while.

"So," Toph said, somewhere to Katara's right. "Today was pretty awful."

The words were something Toph might say as a joke; but the tone was shaky, and Katara couldn't have managed a laugh in reply even if she'd wanted to.

Toph was quiet for a moment and then moved again, walked over toward Katara and sat down next to her. "I guess that's it, then, huh?"

Katara blinked her eyes open. "What?"

"Well, come on," Toph said. "I mean, seriously. What are we even supposed to do now? We gave it a try, but it didn't work—and I mean _really_ didn't work, in case you weren't paying attention back there. Not like anybody would blame you for going home—"

"_I_ would," Katara said, suddenly almost angry, sitting up away from the wall. They'd gone through the desert, Azula, the Dai Li; Li Chen had risked everything to help them; Yue had let herself be left behind to give them the chance to get away—there was no way they could sit back now and let it all have been for nothing. "Are you kidding me? _No_, we can't just—we're not going to give up, Toph. We _can't_."

Toph had raised her eyebrows, expression dubious, and Katara almost reached out to shake her—and then the corner of her mouth started to slant up into a smile. It was tiny and tired and wry, but it was there. "Well," Toph said. "I guess you're an Earthbender under there somewhere after all, sugar queen."

Katara looked at her and then leaned back against the wall and laughed—short, sharp, and she had to stop before it could turn into crying, but she did it. Aang giggled helplessly, and then met her eyes and giggled some more, and ended up covering his face with his hands and drifting down to sit on the floor.

"I mean it," Toph added after a moment. "That thing you did in the cave, when the Dai Li were breaking open the floor—I've never seen anybody do anything like that before. You're as much of a master Earthbender as I can make you." She reached out and punched Katara gently in the shoulder. "You were a really, really good rock, Katara."

"Thanks," Katara said, and punched her back.

They sat silently together for a moment, and then Toph nudged Katara in the thigh with one knee. "So, what _are_ we supposed to do next?"

"I don't know," Katara admitted. "I—I don't know what we _can_ do."

She didn't know what she expected—for Toph to sigh and shake her head, or yell at her, tell her she was stupid and selfish for making them all follow her when she didn't know where she was going. But Toph just shrugged and said, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Sure," Toph said. "We'll figure it out. We'll find someplace safe to stop, and we'll eat, and then we'll go to sleep, and we'll talk it over tomorrow. You're lucky you're not doing this alone," she added. "Without anybody to make you quit worrying, I bet your head would have exploded ages ago."

"Oh, shut up," Katara said, kicking Toph's foot halfheartedly.

It was a better thought to have circling around in her mind: they'd figure it out. They'd stop and eat and sleep, and they'd talk about it; they'd figure out where to go next, what to do, and wherever it was, whatever it was, Katara wouldn't be doing it alone.

* * *

><p>"<em>Finally<em>," Tan Khai muttered, stepping out into the hallway.

Mizan ignored her, and was gratified to see that the guards escorting them had the grace to do the same.

Granted, Tan Khai had in fact demonstrated extraordinary patience, for her—after the first three days, Mizan had half expected to be told that she had thrown the man assigned to question her out a window. Now, a good ten days later, no one had been thrown out a window at all. Not even Tan Khai herself, who must have been hopelessly frustrating to interrogate.

It had taken mere hours for them to be led inside the gates of the royal palace in Sai Sok Sun, and nearly two weeks to traverse the remaining distance to the throne room. Mizan and Tan Khai had been separated almost immediately, and Mizan had had her weapons taken, had been politely but thoroughly searched, and had been questioned about everything the minister assigned to her seemed able to think of—Mizan could only assume Tan Khai had been dealt with much the same way. Mizan had been able to hear her shout a few times, somewhere down the hallway; she had sounded more angry than in pain, but seemed to have managed not to strangle anyone.

Mizan had been able to wring free an assurance that their ships had not been harmed, and were in fact still waiting outside the harbor—disruptions caused by the pirates had been limited to tossing bottles of rice beer into the patrol junks assigned to guard them. Mizan assumed that so many of the crew being blatantly and obviously Earth Kingdom themselves, even though the ships were not, was half the reason they were being permitted to see the king and queen at all; and the other half, perhaps, was that the midday sun today cast a light like sunrise—like it shone through a veil of smoke.

Whatever the logic, Mizan had borne a fresh interrogation as usual this morning, and then the minister had come back in the afternoon and had her taken out into the hallway. They had only just collected Tan Khai, who looked annoyed but none the worse for wear; and they were going _somewhere_, which was at least preferable to sitting in that tiny room answering stupid questions.

They came to a stop by a smaller door than Mizan had expected—perhaps not the true throne room, then, but if it was not at least an audience chamber, then Mizan would _let_ Tan Khai throw someone out a window.

One of the guardsmen escorting them nodded to his fellows at the door, and then prodded Mizan in the calves with the butt of his spear—judging by the snarl that came from Mizan's right, someone else had tried to do the same to Tan Khai. The door was opened for them, and Mizan grabbed Tan Khai's elbow before she could start throwing punches and walked in.

It could not be the main throne room, it was too small a space; but it was fine and well-kept, and in the two raised chairs at the further end were either the king and queen of Cheolla or a pair of extremely carefully-dressed decoys.

Mizan didn't bow, although she also refrained from crossing her arms and looking surly the way Tan Khai was doing; and the king looked at her flatly but did not order her dragged to her knees, so perhaps he really would be reasonable.

"You claim to be here in service of a mutual goal?" the king said.

He was looking at Mizan, very pointedly; she looked back, expression pleasant, and then turned to Tan Khai, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

Tan Khai glared back, resentful, and then sighed through her nose, like talking to a king was some tedious and uncomfortable chore aboard ship. "We do not claim to be in _service_ of anything," she said. "We came here to ask for your assistance—so that we might have half a chance to save your own sorry—"

Mizan cleared her throat.

"You asked me to talk," Tan Khai said to her, "and I am talking." She turned back to the king, tilting her chin up belligerently. "If you will not help us, then say so and let us out of here, so we can go and nobly burn to death on our own without wasting any more time."

"You wish us to commit our own ships and sailors," the queen said to Tan Khai, "on your word that they are needed—on your word, and hers, that you will not sink them the moment they depart our harbor. Why should we believe it?"

Tan Khai looked at her and let out a bark of laughter. "You give us too much credit, surely," she said, "to think we came here with crews of Earth sailors, with ships like those, and then rowed into your harbor alone—put up with your poking and prodding and incessant questioning—and all the while intended to _convince_ you to let us attack you? If we wished you dead, you think we would _ask your permission_?"

"She is Fire Nation," the king said, leaning forward in his throne and pointing sharply at Mizan. "The ships are Fire Nation—"

Tan Khai moved a half-step sideways—and shouldered forward, between the king's accusing hand and Mizan. "She is an exile from that country, it has no claim on her loyalty; and the ships are captured vessels."

"We have not destroyed their logs," Mizan added, calm. "You may see for yourself that they were captained by many different officers, sailing many different routes, before we took them."

"We," the king repeated, leadingly.

"We have no king or land," Tan Khai spat. "We are abandoned—and would abandon you in turn if it weren't for this idiot and that blade she calls a tongue."

"You are too kind," Mizan murmured.

Tan Khai snorted, glancing back for a moment over her shoulder, and then she looked again at the king. "Whatever you would call us," she said, "we are no friends of the Fire Nation. You have been told all we know by your ministers; you must have seen the fleet that sailed for the South Yellow Sea, as we did, and unless you are fools indeed, you know the look of the sky this morning—you know what that means."

"We can defend the river's mouth from that fleet—but we cannot do it alone," Mizan added.

The king looked at her thoughtfully—more than likely a show, if Mizan had to guess. He and the queen would not have seen Mizan and Tan Khai at all if they had not already decided what they wished to do, and what they would ask in return for it. "Your ships will not be allowed to enter our harbor until it is over," said the king at last, eyes narrowed.

"Agreed," Mizan said.

"You will station your ships at the mouth of the river," said the queen, "and we will reinforce you from the south."

"Agreed," Mizan said.

"Mizan!" Tan Khai cried, whirling to stare at her. "This is madness—we will face the worst of the fire, we will be spared nothing, and for what? They will not help us—"

"They will do as they have promised," Mizan said, pleasant, smiling guilelessly up at the queen. "Or they will lose any use they might have had of the best-armored, best-equipped, fastest ships that have ever sailed past their sea-wall."

"A fair point," the king admitted, "but if Fire Nation ships sink while sinking other Fire Nation ships, I will not sleep badly the night after." He shook his head. "You are either sincere to a degree that your friend is right to label madness, or you have some trick up your sleeve that I cannot even imagine."

Mizan inclined her head, and then turned the smile on him. "But you are willing to find out which?" she said.

The queen had leaned forward in her throne, one hand raised to touch her mouth thoughtfully; she looked from Mizan to Tan Khai and back again, and said, "If what you tell us of Ba Sing Se is true, we need to know it."

The king glanced at her, and she looked back at him evenly—nothing in either of their expressions changed, but after a moment the king turned back to Mizan and nodded. "Very well," he said. "You shall have our ships. If the fleet you say has gone to Ba Sing Se hopes to return down this river, we will not make it easy for them."


End file.
